Atlantis Resources Corporation has announced the successful completion of trials of its Solon tidal current turbine and is seeking installation opportunities in the UK, Australia, Asia and the USA.
Following extensive analysis of turbines in shallow, tidal, current and river installations, Atlantis expects to launch the 2MW Solon early next year.
The Solon tidal current turbine has a horizontal axis that is designed for floating arrays in water depths greater than 40-50m.
Its ‘swept back blade’ design, combined with a power take-off system, supplies the turbine with the capacity to achieve over 500kW in eight knots of water flow. This provides a 50 per cent throat efficiency, making Solon the most efficient tidal turbine ever ocean tested.
Trials were conducted off the coast of Singapore and involved the use of two ocean-going tugs to mobilise the 20 tonne horizontal axis.
The turbine, developed by Dr John Keir, is based on Atlantis’ Solon turbine performance model. Changes are expected to be made to the design following test analysis later this year.
Keir believes the turbine will be able to achieve efficiencies in excess of 60 per cent within the next two years.
Timothy Cornelius, chief executive officer of Atlantis, said: ‘We are hugely excited by Solon’s performance during testing and, more importantly, the close correlation of the actual performance to the expected performance predicted by Atlantis’s theoretical model, which we have invested heavily in over the past 12 months.
‘Combined with our unique business development capabilities following the acquisition of Morgan Stanley’s tidal project origination business, this positions Atlantis as a leading player in the global roll-out of commercial scale tidal current generation.’
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