Marine Current Turbines Ltd (MCT), is a

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

-based company which is developing

tidal stream generator A tidal stream generator, often referred to as a tidal energy converter (TEC), is a machine that extracts energy from moving masses of water, in particular tides, although the term is often used in reference to machines designed to extract energy ...

s. It is owned by the German automation company, Siemens.

History

MCT was founded in 2000 to develop ideas of

tidal power Tidal power or tidal energy is harnessed by converting energy from tides into useful forms of power, mainly electricity using various methods. Although not yet widely used, tidal energy has the potential for future electricity generation. T ...

developed by Peter Fraenkel, who had previously been a founder partner of ''IT Power'', a consultancy established to further the development of

sustainable energy Energy is sustainable if it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Most definitions of sustainable energy include considerations of environmental aspects such as green ...

technologies. The company is based in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city i ...

and employed 15 people in 2007. By 2003, MCT had installed a 300 kW experimental tidal turbine northeast of

Lynmouth Lynmouth is a village in Devon, England, on the northern edge of Exmoor. The village straddles the confluence of the West Lyn and East Lyn rivers, in a gorge below Lynton, which was the only place to expand to once Lynmouth became as b ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

and by 2008 they had a 1.2 MW turbine,

SeaGen SeaGen was the world's first large scale commercial tidal stream generator. It was four times more powerful than any other tidal stream generator in the world at the time of installation. It was successfully decommissioned by SIMEC Atlant ...

, in

Strangford Lough Strangford Lough (from Old Norse ''Strangr Fjörðr'', meaning "strong sea-inlet"PlaceNames N ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. North ...

which was able to feed electricity into the National Grid. They now have contracts to install a full

tidal farm A tidal farm is a group of multiple tidal stream generators assembled in the same location used for production of electric power, similar to that of a wind farm. The low-voltage powerlines from the individual units are then connected to a substat ...

in the

Skerries A skerry is a small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation. Skerry, skerries, or The Skerries may also refer to: Geography Northern Ireland * Skerries, County Armagh, a townland in County Armagh * Skerry, County Antrim, a ...

, off northwest

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

, and projects in the

Bay of Fundy The Bay of Fundy (french: Baie de Fundy) is a bay between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the U.S. state of Maine. It is an arm of the Gulf of Maine. Its extremely high tidal range is th ...

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native En ...

and

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. Th ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

. In February 2012, Siemens acquired a majority share in the company, raising its holding from 45% to over 90%. MCT was wholly owned by Siemens, as part of the Hydro and Ocean Business, before being transferred to the Renewables business and finally divested to Atlantis resources who effectively shut the company down.

Technology

The technology developed by MCT works much the same as a submerged windmill, driven by the flow of water rather than air. Tidal flows are more predictable than air flows both in time and maximum velocity, therefore, it is possible to bring designs closer to the theoretical maximum. The turbines have a patented feature by which they can take advantage of the reversal of flow every 6 hours and generate on both flow and ebb of the tide. The tips of the blades are placed well below the surface so they will not be a danger to shipping or be vulnerable to storms. Because the blades move relatively slowly (15 rpm) and there are only two, it is unlikely that there will be adverse environmental impacts on fish or other aquatic life. A monitoring project has been set up in the Strangford Lough project to confirm this. Two approaches are being followed, one for relatively shallow waters, up to , and the other for deeper waters. In shallow waters, the turbines are suspended on a tower which extends above the water surface and enables the turbines to be lifted clear off the water for maintenance purposes. But since the number of sites around the world where this is possible is finite, they're also developing fully submersed systems which will take advantage of larger scale, but will also be able to be brought to the surface for maintenance.

SeaFlow

The SeaFlow project involved building a full-size prototype capable of producing 300 kW. This was installed off the

coast near

in May 2003. It was the largest tidal turbine operating until SeaGen started.

SeaGen

was a full-scale tidal flow power station that produced electricity on 14 July 2008. However, subsequently a computer problem caused damage to one of the rotors and procuring a replacement took until the end of October 2008. However, SeaGen was able to operate using just its good rotor through the summer of 2008 and that rotor was operated at full rated power of 600 kW for many hours. After replacement of the damaged rotor SeaGen delivered its full rated power of 1.2MW for the first time on 18 December 2008 - believed to be the first time a "wet renewable energy system" has delivered in excess of 1MW.

Skerries Tidal Stream Array

In a proposed joint project with RWE Npower Renewables, 7 of the SeaGen generators, producing about 10 MW at peak, would be installed off the Skerries, a patch of very fast-moving water off

Anglesey Anglesey (; cy, (Ynys) Môn ) is an island off the north-west coast of Wales. It forms a Local government in Wales, principal area known as the Isle of Anglesey, that includes Holy Island, Anglesey, Holy Island across the narrow Cymyran Strai ...

in northwest

. An environmental consent application was submitted to the

Welsh Government , image = , caption = , date_established = , country = Wales , address = , leader_title = First Minister () , appointed = First Minister approved by the Senedd, ceremonially appointed ...

in March 2011, though financing still needs to be finalized.

Canada

An agreement has been made with

's ''Maritime Tidal Energy Corporation'' in 2007 to develop tidal resources in the

. With a tidal range exceeding , and flows of up to , this area has long been favoured as the most promising source of tidal power and the newer tidal flow concepts mean that the associated shipping and environmental problems of barrage schemes are no longer prohibitive. MTEC concluded that MCT had the most proven technology of the companies evaluated.Arrangement with Maritime Tidal Energy Corporation
On the west coast, they have also agreed to install at least three 1.2 MW turbines in the Campbell River in

as a first step in developing tidal farms in that river and other tidal waters.

Notes

External links

MCT Website
* {{cite journal , author = Wang Jifeng, Mueller Norbert , year = 2011 , title = Numerical investigation on composite material marinecurrent turbine using CFD , journal = Cent. Eur. J. Eng. , volume = 1 , issue = 4, pages = 334–340 , doi = 10.2478/s13531-011-0033-6 , bibcode = 2011CEJE....1..334W , doi-access = free Technology companies of the United Kingdom Tidal power companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in Bristol