GKinetic eyes bigger tidal device

GKinetic Energy is looking for partners to discuss collaborative opportunities to build and demonstrate a 250kW tidal energy device.

Irish tidal energy developer GKinetic noted it was particularly interested to open discussions with companies able to carry out environmental impact assessments, and with access to suitable tidal demonstration sites for this project.

The company wants to scale-up its tidal energy technology and is looking to form partnerships with companies or academic organizations from the engineering and shipyard industry to drive the initiative forward.

GKinetic said it has recently completed the optimization of the device’s power take-off (PTO) system working with MaREI, and a 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling done by Numerics Warehouse.

Following the last year’s trials, the 10kW GKinetic prototype will be redeployed in the Limerick Docks, Ireland, for another round of testing.

GKinetic also informed that its build partners, DesignPro, is progressing well with the development of smaller-scale river devices with plans to deploy three 25kW devices in Europe and Canada in 2017 and 2018.

To remind, GKinetic received financial backing from the from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), with the latest funding award in the amount of €96,000 granted last year.