Japanese worldwide trading and investment giant Marubeni has joined a group of investors which have between them pledged a total of £0.58 million to enable the tidal stream energy generator developed by Yorkshire, UK, based Pulse Tidal to become the first marine renewable device to feed power into the national grid on the UK mainland..
Pulse Tidal will place the system in the Humber estuary later this year. It will be connected to the UK’s power system through Millennium Inorganic Chemicals on the south bank of the Humber, making the company the first one in the UK to take a direct feed from tidal power.
The system has been trialed successfully at Hull University and uses high-performance hydrofoils similar to aeroplane wings that oscillate vertically. Unlike other planned tidal devices, the Pulse generator can operate in the shallow waters of estuaries where the tides tend to be strongest, allowing the system to deliver low cost power close to areas of high demand. This device will operate in only five metres of water and still produce 100kW of power.
In addition to this equity round £1.1m of grant funding had already been secured by Pulse, including a major grant under the UK government’s Technology Programme, and funds from the European Union’s European Regional Development Fund delivered through the South Yorkshire Objective 1 Programme