EnFAIT – Enabling Future Arrays in Tidal

Project description

EnFAIT is an Horizon 2020 project, led by Nova Innovation, that will advance tidal energy. The project will reduce the cost of tidal energy and increase the commercial viability of tidal power.

EnFAIT, which runs from 2017 to 2022, will double the size of the Shetland Tidal Array from 3 to 6 turbines. For the first time, tidal turbines will be moved around within an array to study effects on efficiency and cost reduction.
The project will reduce the cost of energy for tidal power and improve reliability and availability of turbine performance with best practice maintenance regimes. It will build investor confidence and take a significant step towards a commercial tidal energy sector.

Economic rationale / Business Model

Nova’s goal is to be the world’s leading tidal turbine developer. In order to achieve this goal, we are bringing down the cost of tidal energy to make it competitive with other forms of generation. 
EnFAIT is an essential step in Nova’s plans to lower the cost of tidal energy and increase investor confidence. Innovations from the EnFAIT project will reduce OPEX and CAPEX, increase availability and yield, and reduce risks. This will reduce the cost of tidal energy and make the industry more commercially attractive to investors. 
Nova’s strategy is to start small, think big. We have incorporated this strategy into our business model and turbine design, designing a smaller scale 100 kW tidal turbine, to reach the largest addressable market. We are also developing a direct drive version of our turbine in our D2T2 project to further improve reliability. This will be deployed in 2019/2020. 
Nova’s latest sales projections show we are expecting to ship over 100 turbines per annum by 2024. 

Financing details

Project financing secured: EUR 14.746 million (73 %)

Financing source: Private

Nova Innovation secured a grant with the EU under the Horizon 2020 program for the EnFAIT project.

The promoter has applied or has the intention to apply for EU or EIB financing related to this project

Existing or potential bottlenecks for the realisation of the project / Potential risks

Cost: Lowering the cost of tidal energy requires innovation in the supply chain, economies of volume/scale and improved device availability. Maturity: we are successfully generating electricity from the tide but it is still an emerging technology. To bridge the gap to commercialisation it is imperative to deploy small scale cost-effective arrays before scaling up. Confidence: Tidal energy developers need to demonstrate the performance of tidal arrays, including high availability and reliability.

Project additional information

Nova Innovation leads a consortium of 9 partners in the EnFAIT Project. Partners include: Nova Innovation, ORE Catapult, IDeTA, SKF, University of Edinburgh, MojoMaritime, Wood, RSK, and HMK. 
In September 2018, the project received approval from the European Commission to proceed to its next stage after a very successful first full year of design development and operations.
In October 2018, Nova successfully commissioned its Tidal Energy Storage System (TESS) at the Shetland Tidal Array, successfully integrating a Tesla Powerpack. The combination of tidal energy and energy storage allows Nova to export baseload tidal energy to the grid.