ORPC Ireland and Queen’s University Belfast complete successful deployment of
renewable energy technology for rivers and tides in Strangford Lough, Northern
Ireland

ORPC Ireland and Queen’s University Belfast have announced the successful deployment and
commencement of testing of a next generation marine hydrokinetic turbine at the Strangford
Lough Tidal Test Site. The project marks a significant milestone for ORPC as the first time the
company has generated electricity from one of its turbines outside of North America, after
seventeen previous deployments in the United States and Canada.

The deployment is part of the X-Flow project, led by Queen’s, which also includes Applied
Renewables Research and Shell Technology – Marine Renewable Program as industry partners,
and is supported by the Green Innovation Challenge Fund. This Fund is led by the Centre for
Advanced Sustainable Energy (CASE) as delivery partner for the Department for the Economy
Northern Ireland.

The purpose of this deployment in Strangford Lough is to collect data on the turbine
performance in a real tidal environment, building on laboratory testing undertaken earlier this
year at Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche’s large towing tank in Rome, Italy, during the
European Commission-funded project CRIMSON. The turbine utilizes the same patented cross-
flow technology to harness tidal and river currents as ORPC’s commercial RivGen® Power
System.

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The next phase of the project will include the testing and monitoring of the turbine through a
range of operating conditions. Other work packages in the X-Flow project will focus on
validating and enhancing numerical models of tidal energy turbines using the data collected
from this deployment in Strangford Lough, and a study of the benefits that tidal energy can
provide to Northern Ireland’s electricity system.