North Wales tidal stream energy project, Morlais, has signed up three new turbine developers.
French firms Sabella and HydroQuest, and  Spanish developer Magallanes, all aim to deploy devices on a commercial scale at the Crown Estate-designated zone off the coast of Anglesey, north Wales.

Morlais is run by social enterprise, Menter Môn. The first stage of the project, aims to secure consent for the development of the zone. The second stage will put the necessary infrastructure in place so that developers, including the three new partners, can implement their devices at the site.

Sabella, based in Brittany, has already completed sea trials for its 1MW D10-1000 turbine and is  targeting marine applications for remote grids. The company’s Marlène Moutel said: “Anglesey’s waters have a great deal of tidal resource and Morlais will enable us to commercially deploy a pilot tidal array, a crucial step toward the development of the tidal industry.”

HydroQuest, based in Grenoble, develops turbine technology for rivers and the sea and aims to deploy its1MW tidal turbine OceanQuest in the Morlais zone.

The Magallanes project, launched in 2009, in Galicia, Spain has previously tested its first commercial scale tidal platform carried on at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney Islands. It is aiming for larger scale deployment at Morlais.

Morlais is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh government. The project has the potential to scale up over time to generate up to 240MW of electricity.