Abstract
MeyGen Limited (MeyGen) is a Scottish-registered company established in 2010 for the purpose of developing the MeyGen Tidal Energy Project. MeyGen was awarded an Agreement for Lease for the Inner Sound tidal development site on 21 October 2010 by The Crown Estate. The Inner Sound Agreement for Lease is for 398MW of installed tidal stream energy capacity and will be consented in two separate phases.
Phase 1 has already been consented. It is sub-divided into 3 further phases; 1A, 1B and 1C. Phase 1A is a 6MW demonstration array, which comprises four 1.5MW tidal turbines. Phase 1A reached financial close in 2014, and is now approaching completion of construction. Phase 1B will comprise a further 6MW commercial array to be installed by 2018, and Phase 1C will add another 74MW, bringing the total capacity for Phase 1 to 86 MW – the extent of the secured planning consents. Phase 1C deployment is intended in 2021-2022. Phase 2 will increase the installed capacity to a total of 252MW, the extent of the currently secured grid connection capacity. Phase 3 will then require an additional expanded grid connection to build the project out to the full site capacity of 398MW.
Phase 1A of the MeyGen project is partly funded through a £10million grant from the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) under the Marine Energy Array Demonstrator (MEAD) Fund. The remainder of the funding is from Atlantis Resources Limited, and The Crown Estate, Scottish Enterprise’s Renewable Energy Investment Fund, and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (collectively with BEIS, referred to herein as the ‘Funders’). One of the requirements of the BEIS grant contract is that MeyGen considers the experiences from the MeyGen Phase 1A project, which may be useful to the wider tidal industry, through a series of ‘lessons learnt’ workshops, and that the results of these workshops are disseminated for the benefit of the wider tidal industry.
There are anticipated to be three such workshops, each representing the main stages of the Phase 1A project. The first workshop corresponds to the period from financial close to the end of the design phase, the second workshop to the end of the construction phase, and the third workshop to the end of the initial operational phase. This report summarises the results of the first of these workshops. This report will be superseded by an updated report once the second workshop has been held, and the final report will contain the results from all three workshops.