In a statement, Michael Axmann, CFO of the newly founded Solar & Hydro Division within Siemens’ Energy Sector, said the move means the company ‘will actively shape the commercialization process of innovative marine current power plants’.
Siemens had original acquired a minor stake in the tidal technology company in February 2010. According to Dr Andrew Taylor, CEO of MCT, the increased backing from Siemens is essential to support the commercialization of its technology.
“We are about to approach investors to secure funding for our first two tidal array projects, and Siemens’ increased investment as well as UK Government support should give investors the confidence that we have the necessary backing to deliver these crucial projects and the ones to follow,” Taylor said.
MCT plans to present two Project Investment Prospectuses to the market within the next month for its 8MW Kyle Rhea project in Scotland and its 10MW Anglesey Skerries project in Wales. For both projects, applications for leases from The Crown Estate have already been approved. The UK Government’s recent ROCs Banding announcement (October 20) will support these projects with 5 ROCs per MWh proposed for tidal energy.
In addition, MCT is planning to deploy a tidal system into the FORCE facility in Canada’s Bay of Fundy and has an approval for a lease from The Crown Estate to deploy a 100MW tidal farm off Brough Ness, on the southern most tip of the Orkney Islands in Scotland.
MCT has already successfully implemented its first commercial scale demonstrator project SeaGen in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough. Since November 2008, SeaGen’s two axial turbines, with a combined capacity of 1.2MW, have been feeding power into the grid to supply the equivalent of around 1500 homes. SeaGen has to date generated over 2.7GWh of electricity to the grid, the largest amount of electricity in the whole of the ocean power sector.
