
ORPC Ireland and Queen’s University Belfast have announced the successful deployment and commencement of testing of a next-generation marine hydrokinetic turbine at the Strangford Lough Tidal Test Site.
The project is the first time ORPC has generated electricity from one of its turbines outside of North America, after 17 previous deployments in the United States and Canada.
The deployment is part of the X-Flow project, led by Queen’s University Belfast, which also includes Applied Renewables Research and Shell Technology – Marine Renewable Program as industry partners, and is supported by the Green Innovation Challenge Fund. This fund is led by the Center for Advanced Sustainable Energy (CASE) as delivery partner for the Department for the Economy Northern Ireland.
The purpose of the deployment in Strangford Lough is to collect data on the turbine performance in a real tidal environment, building on laboratory testing undertaken earlier this year at Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche’s large towing tank in Rome, Italy, during the European Commission-funded project CRIMSON. The turbine utilizes the same patented cross-flow technology to harness tidal and river currents as ORPC’s commercial RivGen Power System.
“The Queen’s Marine Laboratory (QML) Tidal Test Site in Strangford Lough is a unique facility providing developers the opportunity to deploy and monitor their technology in real tidal flows,” said Carwyn Frost, Senior Lecturer at QUB. “The X-Flow project will provide unique insight on the impact of turbulent flow conditions on the control of the crossflow turbine and its blade loading. The fully instrumented turbine by ORPC will provide vital data for assessing the impact of turbulent flow conditions on performance, blade loading, and control. This work will facilitate condition monitoring for predictive maintenance approaches and validation data for numerical simulations. The team at QML looks forward to delivering successful on water testing in collaboration with our industry partners.”
The next phase of the project will include the testing and monitoring of the turbine through a range of operating conditions. Other work packages in the X-Flow project will focus on validating and enhancing numerical models of tidal energy turbines using the data collected from this deployment in Strangford Lough, and a study of the benefits that tidal energy can provide to Northern Ireland’s electricity system.
ORPC is based in Portland, Maine, U.S.. In addition to Dublin-based ORPC Ireland, ORPC operates subsidiaries in Montreal (ORPC Canada) and Punta Arenas (ORPC Chile).