Scotrenewables Ltd, an Orkney based company, believes it can bring about a sea change in tidal power and become the industry standard. The Scotrenewables Tidal Turbine (SRTT) system is an innovative, free-floating, rotor-based, tidal current energy converter and was developed as the best means of extracting energy from tidal currents.
Barry Johnston (Managing and Technical Director) said, "The costs of producing electricity from renewable sources such as wind are becoming comparable with that of fossil fuels and are continuing to fall. Tidal energy is predictable and is available at times when wind energy is not. In addition, the visual impact is minimal."
He added, "We believe the SRTT provides a simple, innovative and cost-effective solution to the problem of tidal energy extraction. As the SRTT is designed to keep deployment and maintenance costs to a minimum, it is expected to produce energy at a significantly lower cost than its competitors. Tidal energy can in its nature be difficult to access, with many generator technologies being site specific.
This is not a problem for the SRTT. It is adaptable so can suit any site conditions and scale of resource. This maximises the number of potential sites where the technology can be deployed." Scotrenewables feel that there are clear benefits to tapping into tidal resources. The UK has a significant tidal stream resource, which represents around half of the European resource and between 10-15% of the known global. The company says maximum exploitation of this resource has the potential to considerably reduce carbon emissions.