Development

Tidal Sails has carried out a range of theoretical and numerical studies over the years. These have been validated by several prototypes and test rigs. Winner of many awards, Tidal Sails in 2008 joined the European “Champions’ League” of innovative SMEs as it won a major R&D contract from the Eurostars Programme, sponsored by the European Union. It became one of CNBC’s 10 Green Heroes in 2010, and was also awarded Frost&Sullivan’s “Technology Award 2010,”.

With this background Tidal Sails today has a small scale demonstrator operating in a stream outside Haugesund, Norway. This has a nominal capacity of 28KW, and provides an excellent basis for scaling up systems to the range of several MW. The hydrodynamic forces work exactly the same in any scale.

The next step is to install a full scale system in cooperation with an energy company to demonstrate and verify the commercial potential. Tidal Sail’s ambitions include commercial installations consisting of multiple units, each with a nominal capacity between 2-10 MW. Several units may be installed in a tidal stream and consequently represent a considerable production of clean renewable electricity in the range of 10-100+GWh a year.