Client News-Marine Current Turbines awarded £2.7m by Carbon Trust to enhance its SeaGen tidal system

Marine Current Turbines awarded £2.7m by Carbon Trust to enhance its SeaGen tidal system

Marine Current Turbines has secured funding of £2.7million from the Carbon Trust’s Marine Renewables Proving Fund (MRPF) to support the enhancement of SeaGen, the world’s largest and so far only megawatt scale grid-connected tidal current energy system that has been supplying electricity to customers in Northern Ireland since December 2008.

Martin Wright, Managing Director of Marine Current Turbines (MCT), said: “Securing the MRPF funding is another strong vote of confidence in our SeaGen technology and importantly we are proving that our SeaGen technology works extremely well, supplying power to commercial customers on daily basis.

“The experience that we are gaining from SeaGen’s real-time operation is of enormous value as we seek to improve its efficiency and operational capabilities in advance of deploying further turbines into our first tidal farms. The Carbon Trust funding will be used to assess SeaGen’s operation, our engineering processes, construction and installation techniques and assist us in reviewing and evaluating a range of other important issues.”

Marine Current Turbines aims to deploy its first tidal farm in UK waters during 2012. The company is partnering RWE npower renewables to develop a 10MW tidal farm off Anglesey, and in Canada MCT is working with Minas Bay Pulp & Paper to deploy a single SeaGen device in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia during 2011.

Notes to Editors:

Marine Current Turbines Ltd (www.marineturbines.com) is based in Bristol, England. The company was established in 2000 and its principal corporate shareholders include BankInvest, Carbon Trust Investments, ESB International, EDF Energy, Guernsey Electricity and High Tide. The company has a power purchase agreement with Ireland’s ESB Independent Energy for SeaGen’s output.

In September 2009, MCT was ranked the world’s top tidal energy company in The Guardian/Clean Tech Global 100 Survey and in June 2009 won Renewable Energy Developer of the Year in the UK Renewable Energy Association Annual Awards.