Orbital Marine has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise £4m and help it start the next step of its journey.
The company - with offices in Edinburgh and Orkney - is looking to raise the money via the Abundance platform by 15 June, offering a 12-year term, with extra monies potentially coming from future power purchase agreements.
It has so far managed to capture more than 80 investors and more than £2m in funding.
"This investment will directly support the O2 to deliver a forecast of around 100 gigawatt hours of clean predictable energy onto the UK grid or hydrogen electrolysers through its project life, and will provide huge learning opportunities for Orbital’s future technology offering and turbine deployments," the corwdfunding page stated.
In 2018, Orbital raised £7m through Abundance - the platform’s largest fund-raise to date - to build its 2MW capacity O2 floating tidal turbine.
Construction was completed last summer, by parent company Orbital Marine Power, on budget and with only minimal delays due to the pandemic, using partners in an extensive UK supply chain.
It was the first vessel to be launched from a Dundee shipyard in 40 years.
The turbine has now been fully commissioned, and since last July has been exporting predictable, low carbon electricity to the UK grid.
It will be capable of generating enough renewable electricity to meet the needs of around 2,000 UK homes every year, for 15 years, saving more than 30,000 tonnes of carbon.
Orbital Marine Power plans to integrate its tidal stream technology in a project on Orkney, with battery storage and green hydrogen production, and to deploy the O2 technology across further multi-megawatt projects.
Andrew Scott, chief executive at Orbital Marine Power, said: “We want to transform the tidal stream energy sector and unlock a new source of clean, predictable power for millions of people, homes and businesses around the world.
“We have already built and deployed the world’s most powerful tidal turbine, and the next stage of our growth promises to be even more exciting.”
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