1/10th Scale Demonstrator at Strangford Narrows

Oceanflow Energy has been testing its 1/10th scale Evopod at Strangford Narrows near the Portaferry Marine Laboratory over 2008/09. This 1/10th scale unit is fitted with a 1.5m diameter turbine driving a 1kW permanent magnet AC generator. The power from this generator feeds the navigation light plus an extensive suite of instrumentation (flow speed, voltage, current, torque, revs, temperature, resistor settings, yaw angle, mooring tension) which is logged and transmitted back to Ocean Flow's office over a mobile phone data link. Excess power is dissipated as heat into the sea.

Queens University Belfast (QUB) are supporting Oceanflow Energy with the deployment and monitoring of the device and the data produced will support the EPSRC Supergen Marine Phase II generic research programme into tidal energy. Further detailed tests to measure Evopod's wake field were carried out by QUB in September / October 2009.

The 1/10th scale Evopod has clocked up over 120 days of operating time in Strangford Narrows, generating with every flood and ebb tide.

Project partners include:

Queen's University Belfast - Portaferry Marine Laboratory: Deployment and recovery.

NaREC: Instrumentation, controls and communications package design and build.

William Oliver and Rodman Russell Ltd: Fabrication of Evopod and midwater buoy.

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