Électricité de France (EDF) has chosen OpenHydro to develop the first tidal current demonstration farm to be connected to the French electricity grid.
The project involves the installation of at least four and up to 10 large seabed mounted marine turbines in a tidal farm located in the Paimpol-Bréhat (Côtes d'Armor) region of Brittany.
The turbines will be progressively connected to the French electricity network from 2011.
The project is expected to create up to 30 new jobs at OpenHydro's manufacturing facility at Greenore, Co. Louth.
The Irish renewable engineering company, which edged out four other tidal technology developers in the selection process, bagged the project on the basis of technical, environmental and financial criteria.
To its credit, OpenHydro became the first company to complete the connection of a tidal turbine and commence electricity generation onto the UK national grid in May this year. More recently, OpenHydro became the first company to deploy a free standing tidal turbine directly onto the sea-bed at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, Scotland. The turbines are being constructed at the company's technical design and assembly centre in Greenore, Co Louth, Ireland.
