A tidal energy company has been granted €1 million (£0.89m) by the EU to support its turbine development programme.

SIMEC Atlantis and its supply chain partner Asturfeito SAU will use the funding to take the MeyGen project forward with a specific focus on the turbine upgrades needed to utilise the subsea hub and shared export cable.

The two-year project is expected to start in January 2019.

Last year, the company’s MeyGen project set a world record for monthly energy production, generating more than 700MWh of clean electricity in August.

Earlier this year, it also unveiled the design for what is claims is the world’s largest single axis turbine.

Drew Blaxland, Director of Turbine and Engineering Services of SIMEC Atlantic Energy said: “The AR1500 turbine installed at the MeyGen project in 2017 marked the first commercial scale turbine installed in a tidal array. Following this successful deployment and record breaking operation of the AR1500 turbine, we now look to the future and where opportunities to reduce the LCOE [Levelised Cost of Energy] exist.

“This grant agreement and support from the Sustainable Blue Economy call allows us to accelerate one of our key LCOE cost reduction initiatives.”