Facilities
We provide the world’s only multi-berth, purpose-built, open sea test facilities for wave and tidal energy converters.
EMEC’s clients benefit from a range of ready-made and cost-minimising test and demonstration facilities in major wave and tidal resources. Significant infrastructure investments have been made to make it as easy as possible for technology developers to learn by doing, with full confidentiality of performance data.
Our operations are spread over five sites across Orkney:
- Billia Croo wave energy test site, Stromness, Mainland Orkney
- Fall of Warness tidal energy test site, off the island of Eday
- Caldale Hydrogen Production Plant, on Eday
- Scapa Flow scale wave test site, off St Mary’s Bay
- Shapinsay Sound scale tidal test site, off Head of Holland
- Offices in Stromness and Kirkwall
Grid-connected infrastructure:
At the grid-connected test sites there are subsea cables which run from each test berth at sea to a substation onshore where electricity generated on site can then be fed into the UK national grid. The test sites offer:
- Coastal 11kV control and switching stations
- 13 subsea cables connected to the UK grid (seven at the Fall of Warness for tidal energy; five at Billia Croo for wave energy)
- Data transfer by fibre optic cables to allow remote access
- Metered power output from test devices
- Comprehensive SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system enabling real-time monitoring
- Wave, tidal and environmental baseline data collection
- MET stations calibrated to national standards
- Full confidentiality of data
- CCTV monitoring
Scale test site infrastructure:
Our two scale test sites have been designed for testing smaller scale devices in less challenging conditions than those experienced at the grid-connected test sites. These scale sites include:
- Berths with mooring points
- Specially designed test support buoys for electricity dissipation and remote communications with the device
- Area of seabed for rehearsal of deployment techniques
- Simplified consenting process (as EMEC holds the licence)
Hydrogen Production Plant Infrastructure:
The infrastructure which forms our hydrogen production plant on the Caldale site on Eday enables hydrogen generation using any excess renewable energy from tidal energy converters testing at the Fall of Warness and from the Eday community wind turbine. EMEC’s hydrogen infrastructure includes:
- 0.5 MW rapid response PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) electrolyser
- On-site storage cylinders allowing up 500kg of hydrogen storage at 200 bar
- A specially designed Mobile Storage Unit (MSU) which can transfer up to 250kg of hydrogen by road and ferry to end users.
Explore these pages for further information on the facilties provided by EMEC. For infomration on the services we offer, visit: EMEC Services
