Atlantis Resources, an integrated marine renewable power company, announced that it has planned to move to the National Renewable Energy Centre (Narec) located in Blyth, Northumberland to continue its tidal turbine testing program.
The AR1000 nacelle, recovered from test berth at Orkney-based European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), will be shifted to new 3 MW turbine drive train testing facility of Narec. The facility will help to prevent risk of in-field activities and to conduct reliability and performance evaluations of new devices and components.
The marine renewable power company anticipates modifying the AR1000 turbine after testing is done at the new Narec’s facility. The program is being developed to generate data on thermal analysis of main nacelle parts, control system validation and nacelle efficiency and also to test the system reliability of the modifications.
Once the construction of 1 MW AR1000 turbine is completed, it will be shifted to Orkney. Atlantis’ 2011 open ocean testing program, conducted at EMEC, resulted in material advancement in converter synchronization to the Scottish Grid, structural loading data, turbine energisation and offshore subsea connection operations. In May 2011, the AR1000 turbine was energized, in June the converters were synchronized, and in July, the initial power was generated to Grid. The company encountered a few developmental engineering problems in autumn 2011, which included the discovery of a non-redundant medium voltage part in the AR1000 circuit. By utilizing Narec's world class turbine testing facility, Atlantis can make design enhancements on the existing AR1000 technology platform.
Atlantis, along with its partners, is establishing a number of tidal energy generation sites, which include the gulfs of Khambhat and Kutch, Gujarat, India; Pentland Firth, Scotland and Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy, Nova Scotia.