Scotrenewables Tidal Power Limited (“Scotrenewables”) was founded in 2002 in Orkney to develop cost effective floating tidal stream turbines by offshore engineer Barry Johnston.
From 2003-2009, the company tested its technology at increasing scales, supported by strong investment from TOTAL and Fred. Olsen.
In 2011, the company launched the SR250 250 kW prototype, the first large scale floating tidal turbine in the world. The turbine had an extremely successful 2 ½ year testing programme at EMEC, clocking up more than 4,000 hours of deployment in the harsh operating conditions of the North Sea. Towards the end of the testing programme, the fully operable turbine was connected to the national grid, verifying the floating tidal turbine approach at large scale.
In 2012, the company secured major new investment from ABB Technology Ventures, giving it one of the strongest investor partnerships in the tidal sector, with further investment from DP Energy, a leading tidal array developer and the Scottish Government's Renewables Energy Investment fund in 2015.
In 2016, Scotrenewables successfully launched the 2MW SR2000 turbine which made history as the world’s largest tidal energy converter. The SR2000 utility scale prototype generated 2MW peak capacity within three weeks of commissioning and has delivering a number of industry generation milestones, whilst validating the technology approach at full commercial scale. By the end of August 2018, the SR2000 had produced over 3,000 MWh of energy output, and had at times provided up to 25% of the electricity requirements of Orkney.
In 2016, the company was also awarded a major grant funding award from the EU Horizon2020 programme to deliver a production model, incorporating a number of cost reduction innovations, that would deliver a step change cost reduction to the tidal energy sector. Design work is well underway on this machine and the company expects to start manufacture of this device in early 2018 as well as progressing additional sales opportunities in international tidal projects.