Project Overview

The European Tidal Energy Pilot Farm Focused on Industrial Design, Environmental Mitigation and Sustainability (EURO-TIDES) project is a flagship tidal farm project aiming to deliver a fully operational tidal energy array consisting of four Orbital tidal turbines, to be deployed at the EMEC Fall of Warness site in Orkney by 2027.

The tidal farm will be connected to the electricity grid and will operate for at least two years within the EURO-TIDES project timeline. Beyond the project duration, the farm is expected to continue operating under full commercial conditions for up to 15 years.

Jointly funded by the EU Horizon Europe programme and the UKRI, the EURO-TIDES project started in December 2023 and will run until February 2029.

Building on the proven success of the O2 turbine, as well as the technological advancements and operational experience gained through the EU-funded FORWARD-2030 and MAXBLADE projects, EURO-TIDES will prioritise the further development of pilot farm systems and the scaling up of industrial manufacturing capabilities.

Through these efforts, the project aims to:

  1. De-risk tidal energy technology development.

  2. Reduce the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) for Orbital Marine Power’s floating tidal technology.

  3. Increase the availability and reliability of tidal stream energy production.

  4. Enhance the bankability and insurability of the technology through performance verification aligned with internationally recognised methodologies.

  5. Strengthen market confidence and build greater supply chain capacity.

  6. Improve understanding of environmental impacts.

By combining these advancements, the EURO-TIDES project will accelerate commercialisation and help develop a project pipeline exceeding 2 GW.

Work Plan

To establish effective project management and governance, this work package aims to achieve fully coordinated high-level technical, commercial, and financial project management activities, as well as to ensure comprehensive reporting. This approach ensures a streamlined and organised framework that supports successful project execution and oversight.

WP1: Project Management

To bridge the gap from technology development to market development while further reducing costs, the O2-X, designed in FORWARD-2030, will be optimised for the industrial design of components, subsystems, and final assembly.

Efforts will be made to improve the sustainability and circularity of the manufacturing methods employed, ensuring that the entire process is both environmentally responsible and economically viable.

WP2: Tidal Turbine Design & Environmental Mitigation

To ensure reduced cost of future tidal stream farms, EURO-TIDES will develop two distinct innovative balance of plant systems, one for electrical infrastructure and one for farm level anchoring. This will draw on the single device incremental innovation developed in FORWARD-2030 (notably subsea connector and rockbolt anchors) and consider the installation of multiple turbines at a single location.

WP3: Innovative Pilot Farm Systems

To enhance the availability of future tidal stream farms, EURO-TIDES will develop a farm-level integrated digital infrastructure. This infrastructure will combine an integrated maintenance management system with comprehensive data capture and advanced analytics, alongside predictive maintenance window optimisation. Together, these capabilities will maximise power production and minimise downtime across the farm, while also identifying safe weather windows to improve operational planning and enhance personnel safety.

WP4: Digital Infrastructure

To ensure European competitiveness and circularity of future tidal turbine farms, this work package will develop the final design for fabrication facilities capable of manufacturing between 10 MW and 50 MW per year, considering both single or multi-location, repurposed or greenfield sites, to meet throughput requirements. Additionally, a concept design will be created for facilities capable of producing 200 MW per year, encompassing specific standalone fabrication facilities for all subsystem and final system assembly, logistics, and launch.

WP5: Supply Chain & Circularity

The dual objectives are to minimise whole-life operating costs and revenue losses while reducing the margins of uncertainty associated with these costs. This work package aims to increase availability through targeted onshore and offshore testing, validation, and de-risking activities related to critical component performance and both planned and unplanned maintenance routines. The goal is to develop a suite of maintenance standard operating procedures (SOPs) that cover the full 15-year project operational life, thereby reducing operating costs and quantifying the costs and revenue loss associated with the most cost-sensitive maintenance interventions.

WP6: Operation & Maintenance Programme

This work package focuses on pilot advanced industrial manufacturing processes to reduce LCOE. The construction and deployment of four O2-X will be carried out in this work package.

WP7: Pilot Build & Deployment

This work package will see the pilot farm deployed in 2027. Throughout the 2-year operational period, EURO-TIDES partners will monitor and validate the performance of the farm, as well as the overall power performance testing. This work package will also develop and test the performance of an integrated environmental monitoring system, continued data collation and preparation for dissemination.

WP8: Full Operational Demonstration

This work package aims to communicate and disseminate all non-confidential project results to optimise their value, reinforce impact, and facilitate future development opportunities, by engaging with end users to ensure the project's innovations align with their needs and requirements.  It will ensure that data collected from the demonstration and pilot structures, including the support structure, is made publicly available.

WP9: Communication and Dissemination

An exploitation plan for foreground IP emerging from the project will be developed. Preliminary plans for scalability, commercialisation, and deployment (feasibility study, business plan, financial model) will be built in this work package.

WP10: Exploitation