Vertical axis tidal turbine designed to generate 2MW in medium speed tides

Until now tidal turbine developers have mostly focused on horizontal axis turbines (HATs), targeting the limited areas with the strongest tidal flows. The costs of developing, deploying and maintaining submerged machinery of this type are still very high meaning they are not yet achieving commercial scale. A completely new, less complex, less costly solution must be found that works in the much more prevalent areas with medium energy tidal flows (max. 2.5 m/s) and depths, typically between 30m and 35m. These extensive areas have not been targeted by the existing developers because their technology is designed for the strongest tidal flows, however if offshore tidal energy is to reach huge scale to compare with wind and solar, these are the areas that matter.

Tidal Technologies Limited (TTL) was formed in early 2021 to meet this challenge. The result is TT2, a very different and yet very simple design, incorporating vertical axis drive shafts extending above water, driven by submerged vertical foils. Turbines of this type are known as vertical axis turbines (VATs). Following successful tests of a 1/20th scale model in the Royal Navy's testing facilities in Gosport, Hampshire, we now firmly believe that TT2's vertical axis design with vertical foils can deliver all of these requirements and is the only concept capable of generating competitively priced tidal stream energy on a very large scale.

Tidal Technologies is looking for organisations to partner with to access grant funding. The TT2 demonstrator will be built starting September 2025 and launched in Summer 2026. We are looking for partners who might want to use our to test their technology, to monitor activity, to capture data, etc