Minesto has completed the first offshore installation phase of the Faroe Islands tidal energy project, as the gravity-based foundation for the power plant has been installed at the site in Vestmannasund.

In 2018, Minesto signed an agreement with SEV to install two DG100 units in Vestmannasund. The agreement also included a power purchase agreement through which SEV committed to purchase the electricity generated by the tidal energy converters.

The novel gravity-based foundation, designed and fabricated by Leask Marine in Orkney, consists of a base frame and a number of doughnut-shaped ballast weights. Each component has been individually lowered to the seabed using the Leask multicat vessel C-Fenna.

“We are very pleased to have the first subsea hardware in place. The operations team has managed to safely progress the offshore installation campaign, adapting the plan to overcome both unfavourable weather conditions and logistical challenges related to the ongoing pandemic.”

David Collier, COO at Minesto.

The foundation will provide the connection point for Minesto’s DG100 tidal kite system. When installed to the foundation, the bottom joint of the kite system provides a pivoting connection point for the tether, allowing the kite to operate freely in its automatically controlled figure-of-eight trajectory. This enables the system to generate predictable renewable tidal electricity.

“The gravity-based structure developed for the Vestmannasund project has a new cost-effective modular design, which among other things means that we can use smaller vessels for transportation and installation.”

The next installation phase involves the subsea export cable that distributes electricity generated by the power plant to the electric grid operated by Minesto’s partner SEV.