Europe’s largest tidal energy project to make a splash in 2021

A new joint venture has been created to deliver the project off the coast of France

Europe’s largest planned tidal energy project will start to be built in France by 2021.

Tidal developer SIMEC Atlantis Energy is forming a joint venture with Development Agency for Normandy and investment fund Normandie Participations to create the renewable facility in Raz Blanchard, Normandie.

The joint venture will be called Normandie Hydrolienne – it will harness up to 2GW of power from waters in the Alderney Race, as well as more than 1GW from other water flows.

In combination, this is expected to provide more power than Hinkley Point C at a lower cost.

The project team will also investigate the feasibility of a multi-hundred-megawatt tidal energy facility. determine if it can be acheived more cheaply then offshore wind, prepare an application for consent to build the device and build a demonstration array.

The companies plan to have a full multi-hundred-megawatt array online by 2024.

Tim Cornelius, CEO of SIMEC Atlantis, said: “Raz Blanchard is sitting on a huge amount of renewable, predictable energy and we wish to bring our project development, financing and power production expertise to help the region of Normandie create jobs and attract a substantial amount of investment into the region.”

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