Image courtesy SKF
SKF is participating in a tidal power project off the Orkney Islands.
Orbital Marine Power, Scottish-based developers of the world’s leading floating tidal turbine technology, has now launched its first commercial 2MW unit, the Orbital O2, which will soon be installed at European Marine Energy Center (EMEC), where it will become the world’s most powerful operational tidal turbine.
About 15 meters below the O2’s 72m-long superstructure, are two fully integrated drive trains from SKF on two wing-like legs. Here the two double-bladed rotors turn, each with a diameter of 20 m, the largest ever on a single generating platform to date, driven by the ocean current. The electricity generated in the generators is conducted ashore via a submarine cable, where it can be fed directly into the grid, stored or processed into “green hydrogen”.