National And International Awards To Key Meygen Site Staff.

29th November 2020

Please note that Scottish Renewables .... the trade body for pollution-free energy generation ... has given its 2020 'Outstanding Contributions Award' to Tim Cornelius, CEO of SIMEC Atlantis Energy that designed, owns and operates the MeyGen prototype tidal-stream power station .... the world's first ... in the Pentland Firth's Inner Sound, one mile off Gills Bay, in Canisbay parish..

It separately declared his Company Simec Atlantis Energy was SR's 2020's 'Champion of Energy'.

This follows on Tim's win of the Europe-wide ViMaris 2020 award from the Ocean Energy Europe trade body earlier in the year..

Gills Harbour Ltd has been amongst the bodies congratulating Mr Cornelius on the triple-award.

Yesterday Bill Mowat, a director of GHL, stated: 'These awards are most richly deserved...

'Without Tim's expertise and forward drive, it is certain that we would not be looking forward to having a tidal stream energy industry here in Caithness, with valuable jobs-creating opportunities in the coming decade, especially with the state-of-the art international computer data process centre being proposed for East Mey.

'I expect that North of Scotland history will judge Tim in the same favourable manner as it does today with Mr Malcolm McKelvie, the conceiver engineer of the Wester Pipeline Bundle system & yard at Wester that has provided c. 100 jobs here pretty steadily every year since 1978.

'It was fortunate for us that Tim had a ROV pilot's job with Wester's Subsea 7 back in 2008/9 when he learned from local engineers about the massive kinetic power contained in the fast-moving tidal streams of the Pentland Firth, correctly forecasting its electricity generating ability and believing that he could contribute to the technology to harness it..

'Tim then set to in creating a suitable multi-million pound financial space that would let his team go on to design & manufacture the necessary new-style 21st century marine turbines, not just talk and waffle about the Firth's potential, as some academics and public servants had been doing for decades earlier'.

'Two of the finest examples of practical entrepreneurship in the 21st C Highlands & Islands truly meet here at Gills Bay with Pentland Ferries Ltd's Managing Director Andrew Banks winning the world 'ship of the year' 2019 award in the 'ferries category' for its brand-new British-designed 85 metre long catamaran vessel Alfred that was announced in March 2020. The vessel is the 'greenest' ferry operating anywhere in the British Isles