Osprey Awarded Contract to Load Out World’s Most Powerful Tidal Turbine

Osprey Group is delighted to work with Orbital Marine Power to aid in the final planning stages of its ground-breaking tidal turbine, the Orbital O2 2MW.

Orbital’s marine technology has the potential to unlock a new source of clean, predictable power for millions of people, homes, and businesses around the world. Moored via anchors in powerful tidal stream or river currents, the tidal turbine’s underwater rotors capture the hugely dense, predictable, renewable energy that flows in the world’s ocean and river currents.

As a team, Osprey’s 25-year marine heritage provides the transferrable skills necessary to deliver an end-to-end project plan incorporating inland water, onshore, and offshore specialist logistics.

The Orbital O2 turbine itself is being assembled in Dundee. A line-configuration of Self-Propelled Modular Transporters (SPMTs) will be used to move the equipment from its construction site to a launch site, where it will be loaded onto a barge. In a world’s first, the barge will then be taken to the float-offsite and submerged to a depth of seven metres, from which point the O2 will be floated off and tugged out into position.

Nigel Fletcher, CEO, Osprey: “The innovation behind our logistics lets us develop new methods of logistics’ deployment, and it enables us to transfer those techniques from one sector to the next. We’ve been working with all kinds of renewables’ clients for 25 years. We’re thrilled to win this contract and be delivering these services to a client that has the same shared ethos and values – validating the benefits for the planet of combined engineering expertise and a commitment to delivering cleaner energy.”

The O2 tidal turbine will be installed in Spring, 2021 at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney. Images and footage will be available.

 

About Osprey Group

Osprey is an independent, British company. For 25 years, Osprey has been delivering and installing some of the world’s heaviest assets and largest abnormal loads – specialist logistics of all kinds, both here in the UK and internationally. With an impressive range of owner-operated equipment, Osprey’s teams deliver unexpected value by finding the right specialist approach to each project, as early on in the programme of works as possible.

Whether the project involves moving tunnel boring machines across the UK to a nuclear power plant, or installing wind turbines in Sweden, this includes ingenious applications for some of the UK’s most capable heavy-lift cranes, over 120 SPMTs, hydraulic lifts and skids, carousels, heavy transport, and an extensive fleet of ocean-going and inland barges.

About Orbital Marine Power Ltd.

Orbital Marine Power Ltd is an innovative Scottish engineering company focused on the development of a tidal energy turbine technology capable of producing a dramatic reduction in the cost of energy from tidal currents. The company currently employs 32 staff with offices in Orkney and Edinburgh.

The O2 project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the FloTEC project (grant agreement No. 691916) and the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg North West Europe Programme under the ITEG project. This project has also received support under the framework of the OCEANERA-NET COFUND project, with funding provided by national / regional sources and co-funding by the European Union’s Horizon2020 research and innovation programme.

Photos: Orbital Marine Power, Ltd.