PLAT-I sparks global interest

Sustainable Marine Energy (SME) has over the week hosted local and international visitors to its PLAT-I platform who showed interest to develop projects using the company’s floating tidal energy technology.

SME kept itself busy demonstrating the PLAT-I floating tidal energy platform, deployed at Connel Sound in Scotland, to its suppliers and interested parties from across the globe.

The visitors to the platform included JBS Group Scotland which built the device, along with the staff from the Marine Planning Department of Argyll & Bute Council, and international parties coming from China and America.

One of the visitors to the platform was Jerome Ringo, the Founder and Chairman of Zoetic Energy, and the Goodwill Ambassador for the Pan-African Parliament.

Zoetic Energy is a renewable energy project developer focused on the deployment of modular hydrokinetic turbines at existing hydro dams, with ongoing projects in Africa, Central America, Asia and Europe.

Zoetic; Schottel Hydro; SME represenantives on the PLAT-I platform (Photo: Schottel Hydro)

The company showed great interest to introduce PLAT-I tidal energy units to run-of-river sites in Africa, according to David Stoddart-Scott, Head of Project Development at SME.

“Zoetic’s Chairman and Co-Founder, Mr. Jerome Ringo joined his partners Schottel Hydro for a hydrokinetic demonstration in Scotland. Zoetic is leading the charge to deploy these at existing hydro dams throughout the developing world,” Zoetic Energy confirmed through social media.

To remind, the PLAT-I platform was deployed for trials in November 2017.

The platform is 32 meters long, with a beam of 27 meters. Each of the four Schottel Hydro’s turbines mounted on the platform is rated at 70kW, bringing the total rated output of the PLAT-I to 280kW.

PLAT-I has been designed for more sheltered and slightly more benign sites in terms of wave climate, and following the trials in Scotland, it will be deployed in the Philippines.