Atlantis plans to harness French tides

Atlantis Resources has made the first step to enter the French tidal market through the signing of a cooperation agreement with the French specialist marine engineering company Innosea.

Atlantis is preparing an industrial plan to enter the French tidal market, with immediate aspirations to develop the first tidal array sites in French tidal races such as the Raz Blanchard site in Normandy.

Innosea is advising Atlantis on how to build a French supply chain plan for the manufacture, assembly and distribution of the Atlantis AR1500 tidal turbines as well as foundations and associated transportation and logistics.

Regions to be investigated for supply chain potential include Brittany, Normandy, Aquitaine, Pays-de-la-Loire, and Hauts-de-France, Atlantis informed.

Tim Cornelius, CEO of Atlantis, said: “France is an exciting new market for commercial scale tidal power project development which is set for enormous growth over the next few years. The success we have worked so hard for at MeyGen has provided our team with knowledge, expertise and lessons learned that can translate directly to project sites such as Raz Blanchard.

“We want to make material progress during 2017 with respect to project identification. From our perspective, deployment of generating assets is possible in one to two years’ time.”

Hakim Mouslim, CEO at Innosea Marine Engineering, said: “Our country has strong industry partners which we have identified for Atlantis in order to maximize the industrial local content. The industrial plan for France we have delivered is able to lead to the set-up of dedicated construction and assembly plants for Atlantis if the project pipeline if sufficient.”

Innosea has undertaken an analysis of vessel fleets, operational ports, marshalling yards and logistics companies in order to prepare a local deployment plan for tidal commercial projects in France for Atlantis.

Innosea is currently assessing local partners for civil engineering works, composite, steel or concrete fabrication, turbine assembly, testing and commissioning and component manufacture, while the future work will focus on the requirements of the AR1500 turbine.