Facilities
We provide the world’s only multi-berth, purpose-built, open sea test facilities for wave and tidal energy converters.
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
- Scale wave test site at Scapa Flow, off St Mary’s Bay
- Scale tidal test site at Shapinsay Sound, off Head of Holland
- Office and data facilities in Stromness
At the full-scale test sites there are subsea cables which run from each test berth at sea to a substation onshore where they meet the UK national grid.
We also gather weather, wave and tidal data from each site. You can view this data live on our live data dashboard.
We also operate two scale test sites for testing smaller scale devices in less challenging conditions than those experienced at the full-scale test sites. These scale sites include berths with moorings, foundations for wave and tidal devices, specially designed test support buoys for electricity dissipation and remote communications with the device, and an area of seabed for rehearsal of deployment techniques.
Infrastructure:
- Coastal 11kV control and switching stations
- All berths UK grid connected
- Metered power output from test devices
- Comprehensive SCADA system (supervisory control and data acquisition)
- Data transfer by fibre optic cables to allow remote access
- Wave, tidal and environmental baseline data collection
- MET stations calibrated to national standards
- Full confidentiality of data
- CCTV monitoring
