On the 26th of January 2023, a few of us (Oliver Coe, Christopher Jones, Isoboye Nonju, Claire Daniels and James King) visited two of the MeyGen Tidal Stream Energy project sites located in Scotland. First site visited was at the Ness of Quoys located close to the village of John O’Groats where we spent the night the day before. This site is where the onshore substation is located and from where we looked out to see the offshore site. Second site visited was at Nigg Energy Park where we for example got to see a turbine being reassembled for deployment.
The MeyGen project is so far the largest planned tidal stream project in the world, having been awarded a lease by the Crown Estate which grants it the option to develop a tidal stream project of up to 398MW at an offshore site between Scotland’s northernmost coast and the island of Stroma. In 2014 the MeyGen project received consent for 86MW. It was lovely seeing the project and learning more about it.
The project is split into four phases:
MEYGEN PHASE 1 - 6MW. Status: operational. The first phase of the MeyGen project comprises four 1.5MW turbines installed on gravity turbine support structures;
MEYGEN PHASE 2 - 28MW. Status: Awarded a Contract for Difference (CfD) in Allocation Round 4 for 28MW at a strike price of £178.54/MWh with a target commissioning date of 2027. The project hopes to be transformational for the tidal energy industry, delivering the world's first commercial scale tidal array and securing MeyGen as the home of tidal energy. The Facility’s Offshore site is located in the Inner Sound of the Pentland Firth between the Island of Stroma and Scottish Mainland. The Maintenance and Storage Facility is located in Shop1 at Nigg Energy Park Tain where MeyGen has had a presence since 2016. The Facility area comprise four regions: Offshore site; Offshore Cable route; MeyGen Onshore Substation site; Metering Station at Gills Bay Grid connection point. The Facility is a tidal stream array and consists of fourteen tidal energy conversion modules, each with a name plate capacity of 2.3MW totalling a gross generation capacity of 32.2MW offshore;
MEYGEN PHASE 3 - 52MW. Status: Consented and under development. MeyGen phase 3 aims to see the remainder of the consented project delivered. Given the award of 28MW in AR4 MeyGen has an additional consent for 52MW which is eligible to be bid into future CFD Allocation Rounds;
MEYGEN PHASE 4 - 312MW. Status: In planning. The MeyGen offshore lease and site resource allows for a capacity out to 398MW to be installed. Phase 4 of the project seeks to expand the consents and build out the remainder of this capacity.
Project Update:
MeyGen Site Generates the World’s First 50GWh of Electricity from Tidal Power
On the 20th of February 2023, the MeyGen project tidal stream array off the coast of the Pentland Firth became the first tidal stream array in the world to generate 50GWh of electricity. This is a significant milestone in delivering tidal stream power at scale especially as currently the total global generation from all other tidal devices and sites is less than 50% of that amount (https://saerenewables.com/meygen-site-generates-the-worlds-first-50gwh-…).