French Firms Poised To Take Lions Share In Pentland Firth

9th July 2013

Reporter Bill Mowat

France is making a determined push to harvest the energy of its tidal streams and perhaps challenge Britain's lead in this hew 'horizontal hydro electricity' field, with employment-creating developments occurring on the other side of the English Channel.

A major shareholder in MeyGen Ltd, the consortium that aims to kick-off tidal stream electricity in the Pentland Firth's Inner Sound as early as next year (2014), wants to build a second 'pilot plant' to harness the fast-flowing tides in the ten miles-wide strait between Alderney, in the Channel Islands and Normandy in Northern France.

The massive 200,000-employee French utility company GDF Suez, that holds a 45% stake In MeyGen Ltd's Inner Sound seabed license, aims to have a 'pilot array' of between three and six turbines generating electricity in French waters between Normandy's Cherbourg Peninsula and the island of Alderney, in three years' time (2016).

This will be in a broadly similar size and time-scale to MeyGen Ltd's initial £50+ million Inner Sound 6-turbine scheme on seabed leased from the Crown Estate.

A recent report in France claims that inshore seas off the country's coast holds a fractionally less share of the European Union's 'exploitable' tidal-stream resources than Britain does; 42% as against 48%.

Last year GDF Suez completed the take-over of British-based International Power plc, MeyGen Ltd's key major UK shareholder when the award of its seabed concession between Canisbay and Stroma Island was made in late 2010.

Early this year (2013), two high-tech tidal turbine developers from the British Isles were separately taken over by French interests.

In January, Rolls Royce plc completed the sale of its Tidal Generation Ltd (TGL) subsidiary, presently based at Bristol, to France's engineering conglomerate Alstom. Its 1MW prototype turbine is under test throughout 2013 at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) tidal site, off Eday in Orkney.

Also last January, a majority stake in Open Hydro of Dublin, Ireland, famous in the nascent industry for its 'polo-mint' design of tidal turbines, was purchased by DCNS, the French naval shipbuilder. The latter has surplus land available at nearby Cherbourg, which it intends to allocate to employment in tidal projects off Normandy.

Open Hydro is a partner with Scottish & Southern Energy in the Cantick Head Crown Estate seabed lease, eight miles across the Pentland Firth from Gills Harbour.

The focus of the planned GDF Suez pilot array is a tide-swept arm of the English Channel known to the French as the 'Raz Blanchard': in English it's the 'Alderney Race', roughly 60 miles South of English coast. Tide-stream speeds are similar to the Pentland Firth, with 8 knots or more regularly experienced on the fortnightly 'spring-tides'.

` GDF Suez has chosen the German-designed 1 MW Voith Hydro 'Hy-Tide' turbine for the first of the six devices planned for 2016 in waters off Cap de la Hague, close to the site of France's main Sellafied-style civilian nuclear reprocessing complex. The Hy-Tide prototype is also being tested this year at EMEC's Falls of Warness tidal site off Eday.

The word 'Blanchard' refers to the white-waters that break during the twice-daily tidal cycle, especially when the powerful sea-currents are opposed by the wind. It has a comparable fearsome reputation to the Pentland Firth amongst French mariners.

GDF Suez states that its aim, though developing the Raz Blanchard and another tidal-stream seabed site in Brittany, is 'to contribute to creating an industrial marine-current sector in France'. To that end is working with French 'maritime and administrative authorities, not-for-profit organisations and fishermen to accommodate economic activities'.

A separate company called Alderney Renewable Energy has won the seabed rights under its adjacent 'territorial sea' and has Open Hydro as a 20% shareholder.

MeyGen Ltd is currently awaiting the final go-ahead from the Scottish Government's agency Marine Scotland for its planned 'Inner Sound Phase One' of up to 86 turbines.

Its consultants have completed a demanding Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and consulted widely. Last March, the Highland Council gave it planning consent for onshore facilities in large 'Power Conversion Unit Buildings' near cable-landing points at Ness of Quoys, Canisbay, on the shores of Gills Bay and later at Ness of Huna, the sea-inlet's Easterly boundary.

The company needs Marine Scotland's 'green-light' before it can commence detailed works for its 'Demonstration Array of Six Turbines' which it hopes to start installing from the second half of next year onwards through 2015. MeyGen Ltd aims to have a full-scale 400 MW sub-sea Inner Sound power station in operation by 2021.

Community-owned Gills Harbour Ltd is amongst the bodies which have lobbied Marine Scotland to say 'yes' to MeyGen Ltd at an early date, while also arguing for jobs-creating opportunities in its 'home' Canisbay area as well as elsewhere in Caithness and beyond.

MeyGen Ltd's other major 45% shareholder is Wall Street, New York-based merchant bank Morgan Stanley Inc., while London-based device developer Atlantis Resource Corporation, with a Singapore registered office, holds the remaining 10%.

At present, three quarters of the electricity in France is generated by its nuclear power-stations. But President Francois Hollande's administration plans to 'retire' some of its older reactors, cutting the atomic share of France's electricity-generation to around 50% by 2025.

The French Government hopes that 'renewables', including tidal stream electricity, will help to fill in some of this 'nuclear electricity' gap.

France has had the world's first large-scale tidal barrage power station ... which works similarly to 'reversible' conventional hydro ... operating on La Rance river in Brittany since 1966. As an integral part of the development, La Rance's narrow estuary at St Malo was bridged by a road, now carrying over 30,000 vehicles per day between two previously isolated communities.

The power station's site on the barrage beneath the road's carriageway was influenced by the very large tidal 'rise and fall' range averaging at 8 metres: at spring tides peak it rises to over 13 metres. The power station, which contains a sea lock-gate and a 'lifting' bridge to allow ocean-going ships up the navigable river, is currently being refurbished at a cost of almost £100 million.

The rise and fall is far greater than in Caithness; for example Gills Harbour's spring tide maximum 'range' is 4 metres.