Building on its experience with its 1MW turbine, Alstom is now offering the 1.4MW Oceade 18 tidal steam turbine, designed to be more efficient, cost-effective and easier to maintain.
With a rotor diameter of 18 metres, the Oceade turbine has a nominal power of 1.4MW and three variable pitching blades. It is equipped with "plug-and-play" modules on rails, which are accessible through an inspection hatch at the rear of the nacelle designed to enable faster assembly and maintenance. The turbine is also designed to be buoyant, making it easy to tow to and from the operating site, the company says.
The Oceade is ready to be deployed at the tidal energy farm that will be selected in the call for expressions of interest launched in September 2013 by the French government.
Alstom is currently working on the development of an Oceade platform concept to reduce the price of electricity and maximise the use of tidal stream resources according to local conditions.
In January 2013, Alstom successfully deployed a 1MW tidal stream turbine at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) off the coast of the Orkney Islands in Scotland. Alstom is currently testing the turbine, which has already reached nominal power of 1MW, demonstrated its autonomous running capability and generated over 500MWh on the Scottish grid, as part of the ReDapt Project (Reliable Data Acquisition Platform for Tidal), which is commissioned and co funded by the ETI (Energy Technologies Institute).
