When it was founded in the early 1980s, its technology added some 25% to the world’s recoverable reserves of offshore oil and gas. Subsea7 operates an innovative, world-class heavy-engineering specialist pipeline fabrication yard for the international offshore oil and gas industry at Wester, near John O’Groats in Caithness. Mr Cornelius has come a long way since discussing the Pentland Firth’s energy possibilities with a couple of local engineers in the early 2000s, when he was working as a ROV pilot with offshore oil and gas engineers Subsea7. Phase 1B) is the next significant step in delivering cost-effective, reliable, tidal stream electricity for Europe.”Ĭalling on the UK Government to seize the opportunity “to promote, stimulate and prioritise the creation of high-value jobs as it prepares for Brexit”, Mr Cornelius added: “Tidal stream must and will be part of the UK’s future energy mix.” When the Inner Sound Phase 1B project was awarded a 20 million Euros grant by the EU in early 2017, Mr Cornelius described MeyGen as “the World’s most high-profile tidal stream project”. The firth’s main channel (4 to 6 miles out from Gills Harbour) has a depth 60-80 metres, but with geological fault-line trenches dipping vertically some 15 metres deeper. It lies in the midst of one of the planet’s windiest zones. ![]() The tidal stream developments on their doorsteps are matters of great importance, even excitement, to the people living in scattered rural communities around Gills Bay.įor them, it should be a game-changer, helping to halt and then reversing the slow decline that has seen the population drop by two-thirds since the early 20th century.Ītlantis RL aims to prove that world-class technical and economic performance can be achieved from tidal-stream turbines emplaced in the Inner Sound, the open, narrow strait off the Pentland Firth’s deeper main international shipping channel. Those include several international sub-sea sites that that Australian-born entrepreneur’s “quoted” company has an active interest in developing, and expecting to partially use its “in house”-configured tidal turbines, of which there are two variants. ![]() There are at least 6,000 such sites internationally, with characteristics resembling the Pentland Firth’s Inner Sound, according to a recent study (Aquatera Consultants). Such future sub-sea power-stations would be based in hundreds - if not thousands - of widely-scattered, “near shore”, coastal channels and straits throughout the world, where sea-currents flow swiftly. Those include the more “mature” technology of offshore wind, thus helping to make tidal stream electricity generation a sustainable, long-term, power-source for many of the world’s coastal nations in future. The 40-year-old, whose adroitness and vision largely led to the 2016 start on harnessing the Pentland Firth for electricity, expressed confidence that tidal-stream generation costs can be significantly reduced, to match those from other “green” sources. Tim Cornelius, Atlantis RL’s CEO, said in late 2016 that he foresaw a long-term future for tidal stream electricity on a world stage. “Inner Sound is the world’s most high-profile tidal stream project” ![]() ‘Olympic Ares’: installs tidal turbines off Gills bay
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