Swedish marine energy developer Minesto has withdrawn plans to roll out new underwater power plants off the Anglesey coast this year. The company had been due to install its new Dragon Class marine energy converters at Holyhead Deep.
This was an upgraded design of the company’s Deep Green technology that's in place off Anglesey. It was due to be installed for demonstration testing at the North Wales site this year.
But Minesto now say it will concentrate this year’s operations with its Dragon Class marine energy converters at the established and grid-connected site in Vestmannasund, Faroe Islands. It said it remained committed to the plan for an 80 MW commercial array off North Wales.
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The firm said: "This plan will mitigate supply chain delays and at the same time allow Minesto to take advantage of significant synergies and new opportunities for more cost-effective operations, electricity production under an existing Power Purchase Agreement, and hence a quicker route to commercial roll out."
Dr Martin Edlund, CEO of Minesto, said: "We are confident that this restructuring of our ongoing projects is the best way forward. This is the most value-creating use of investments, both private and public, in our EU-funded collaborations with the Welsh European Funding Office and the Interreg Tidal Stream Industry Energiser Project. The funding agreements for these projects remain the same, and so does our commitment to develop an 80 MW commercial array off North Wales.
”Streamlining our installations to one location brings significant synergies in terms of risk reduction, logistics and costs. It is the fastest approach to demonstrate the upgraded powerplant performance, to generate revenues and to enable large-scale buildout of arrays in multiple locations.”
It said that due to the Covid-19 pandemic there have been uncertainties and delivery challenges which are more efficiently managed by concentrating operations to one geographical site.
A spokesman added: "The new project plan allows for back-to-back commissioning and concurrent operations of the two D4 units and the following D12 utility-scale unit. This will enable Minesto to generate electricity production data from long-term, grid-connected operations for use in all ongoing collaborative projects.
"In Wales, the work now focuses on assembly and in-factory testing of the commercial scale 1.2 MW D12 unit and key supporting systems such as bottom joint and installation frames. Production data from this system will support the ongoing site development work towards the buildout of an 80 MW array in Holyhead Deep."
