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 9.6 MW tidal energy array of four 2.4 MW Orbital tidal turbines.
Drawing from the advancements and experiences of the FORWARD-2030 and MAXBLADE EU-funded projects, EURO-TIDES is set to launch this large-scale pilot farm at the EMEC Fall of Warness tidal site in Orkney by 2027, running under full operational conditions for 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.
To establish effective project management and governance, this work package aims at coordinating all high-level technical, commercial, and financial project management activities, as well as ensuring 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 incrementation focused on industrial design, manufacturing processes and integration of 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 that enable a cost-effective and high-performance pilot farm
To ensure increased availability of future tidal stream farms, EURO-TIDES will develop a farm level integrated digital infrastructure. This will focus on an integrated maintenance management system, data capture and analytics, and (predictive) maintenance window optimisation to ensure increased availability by optimising power production and minimising down time across the farm, as well as identifying safe weather conditions to enhance the safety of personnel.
WP4: Innovative integrated digital infrastructure for increased availability pilot farm
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 10MW to 50MW 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 200MW per year, encompassing specific standalone fabrication facilities for all subsystem and final system assembly, logistics, and launch.
WP5: European supply chain and circularity analysis, design of industrial manufacturing processes and facilities, and installation methodologies
The dual objectives are to minimise whole-life operating costs and revenue loss 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: Advanced and effective operation and maintenance programme, with accelerated verification of lifetime OPEX, AEP and tidal energy value analysis - reducing risks and reducing cost of capital
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: Sustainable tidal energy farm pilot build and deployment – trailing of advanced manufacturing processes
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: Demonstration of sustainable tidal energy pilot farm in full operational conditions and implementation of environmental monitoring plan - reducing risks
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.
WP9: Communication and dissemination, ensuring data collected from the demonstration/pilot structure including support structure is publicly available.
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 - scalability, commercialisation, and deployment - attracting investors for future commercial projects.