Minesto's Dragon 4 tidal power plant set a record for electricity generation over the summer at Vestmannasund in the Faroe Islands, the company said, after its engineering team fitted the microgrid-scale plant with an upgraded power-take-off (PTO) system. A power-take-off is the part of a tidal or wave energy device that converts the machine's motion into electricity.
Minesto said tidal flows at Vestmanna ran stronger than its historical models had anticipated. Combined with the improved hydrodynamic efficiency of its second-generation kite technology, the Dragon Class, that meant the plant's original PTO could not capture the full resource. The new PTO raised energy production across all tidal flow cycles while also cutting the system's cost, according to the company.
CEO Martin Edlund said the plant has now demonstrated what the company believes is "the most efficient tidal energy power plant in the world" in terms of energy conversion, proven through months of continuous production. He said the performance matches Minesto's simulation models, which the company said validates its ability to specify power plant configurations for a given site.
CTO Bernt Erik Westre said the published production data show stable generation that tracks the intensity of tidal currents at the site, and that the upgraded Dragon 4 "captures energy in proportion to the predicted available resource." Both the before-and-after production curves came from the same Dragon 4 unit, named Saga, during the second and third quarters of this year, with the power-take-off the only hardware difference between them.
Edlund said the results raise the commercial value of Minesto's intellectual property tied to its Dragon hardware and software.
