Aquamarine Power has announced initial electrical power production from its Oyster 800 wave energy convertor following the machine’s recent return to service.
During the summer Oyster 800, located at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, underwent a major re-fit where new components including accumulators, valves, cables and sub-sea instrumentation connectors were replaced. The machine has been producing power over the past two weeks in a series of controlled tests.
“We are continuing to test the safety systems of the plant and are slowly building up power production. In 60 hours of operations we have produced 6MWh of power,” said Martin McAdam, CEO Aquamarine Power.
“We averaged about 100kW output and had a peak output of 435kW. Our longest continuous period of controlled power output was 22 hours.
“So far all of the replacement kit on the machine has performed as expected – but it’s early days.”
“I think we have to be cautious given our experience with the machine and the variety of equipment failures we have previously experienced. We have encountered some additional problems during commissioning but as every engineer will tell you – commissioning issues are normal.
“Our controlled testing will continue.”
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