Orbital Marine Power has appointed Black & Veatch as lead engineering partner to support technology optimization and cost reduction engineering under the company’s €5 million R&D program.

Supported by the INTERREG France (Channel) England TIGER project, the four-year program will build on Orbital’s floating tidal turbine technology, the O2, in a focused initiative to identify and de-risk innovations capable of accelerating cost reductions for tidal stream energy.  

INTERREG France, England TIGER will support the four-year program build on Orbital’s floating tidal turbine technology, the O2, in an attempt to cut costs on tidal stream energy projects.  

“A central strand to the development of our O2 technology was a vision for the future and to ensure we created a product which is well futureproofed for ongoing innovation. So it is great to have started this work in more detail and  that the initial assessments from Black and Veatch back up our own projections that the correct configuration of technology can make tidal stream energy competitive with established sectors.”

Andrew Scott, CEO, Orbital Marine Power.

Black & Veatch has created a digital twin of Orbital’s current turbine design that allows the teams to model turbine improvements and identify which advances deliver the lowest cost of energy across the entire turbine lifecycle.

“We’re delighted that Orbital has selected us to support their development programme as we see the technology as having huge potential to deliver cost competitive low carbon energy and our team has a huge amount of experience it can bring to assist this journey.”

Robbie Gibson, Black & Veatch renewable energy services director for Europe.