Hammerfest Strøm installs tidal power turbine in Orkney

The HS1000 tidal turbine will be used by ScottishPower Renewables (SPR) as part of its planned 10 MW tidal turbine array in the Sound of Islay, which could be installed as early as feasible during the period 2013 to 2015. A prototype device has been generating electricity in Norway for over 6 years.

The HS1000 tidal turbine has been developed by Hammerfest Strøm, a company partly-owned by Iberdrola (SPR’s parent company), Andritz Hydro and Statoil New Energy.Keith Anderson, Chief Executive of ScottishPower Renewables, says: “We are delighted that the HS1000 turbine has been successfully installed in Orkney, and Hammerfest engineers deserve huge credit for carrying out this difficult operation in very testing weather conditions. We look forward to monitoring its progress when fully operational next year.

“This is a major milestone in the development of tidal power technology in Scotland, and for the tidal power industry across the world. We anticipate using this turbine as part of our project in Islay, which will be the first of its kind in the world, and remains the only consented tidal array project in Scotland. Beyond this, we have ambitions to use this turbine as part of even larger scale projects in the Pentland Firth, which we are currently investigating.”