Orbital Marine Power takes two at IET Awards

Orbital Marine Power’s pioneering engineering work was recognized not once but twice at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) annual achievements awards in London last night.

IET Awards for Orbital Marine (Photo: Orbital Marine Power)

The prestigious awards ceremony saw leading engineering projects and professionals from around the globe nominated for outstanding achievements in key areas of innovation.

Orbital Marine Power was shortlisted in a total of three categories and on the night were successful in being selected as winners of both the Power and Energy Innovation Award, as well as Innovation Award for Model-Based Engineering.

Commenting on the awards, Orbital Marine’s CEO Andrew Scott, said: “We are honored to have been selected from amongst such great nominations, and I’m really proud for the whole team at Orbital Marine.

“They have worked so hard over recent years, under some immense pressure, and through it all have been steadfast and professional in their delivery of a new and truly innovative renewable energy technology – this is some well-deserved recognition for them.”

Orbital Marine Power – formerly named Scotrenewables Tidal Power – is an innovative Scottish engineering company focused on the development of a tidal energy turbine technology with the potential to produce a step-change reduction in the cost of energy from tidal currents.

The Orbital Marine proprietary tidal energy technology has been under continuous engineering development since the company was founded in Orkney in 2002.

In 2016 the company launched the 2MW SR2000, the world’s most powerful tidal stream turbine. The SR2000 produced in excess of 3GWh of electricity over its initial 12 month test program.

The company are embarking on the build of an optimized variant of the SR2000 – the Orbital O2 2MW – as the first commercial turbine unit.

This first unit is targeted to be manufactured through 2019, and enter operation in 2020 at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), in Orkney, according to Orbital Marine Power.