A Scottish tidal energy firm has secured £7 million from private investors to help develop its floating turbine system in a show of faith in the renewable technology.
Orbital Marine Power raised the money by issuing debentures in an offer which won support from around 2,300 individual backers.
The average investment was around £3,000. Investors in Scotland put in £4,500 on average.
The money raised was in line with the target set when Orbital launched the debenture issue on the Abundance crowdfunding platform.
Chief executive Andrew Scott said of the result: “It’s a terrific endorsement of our technology and a clear signal that the UK public is hugely supportive of seeing tidal energy brought into the domestic and global energy mixes.”
The company will use the money to build an enhanced version of its floating turbine for deployment off Orkney.
A prototype tested at the European Marine Energy Centre off the islands supplied the equivalent annual electricity demand of around 830 UK households.
The EMEC project has a power purchase agreement in place for the electricity produced.
Orbital reckons its floating turbine simplifies installation and maintenance as underwater operations can be avoided. The company said it believed the enhanced Orbital O2 2MW turbine will unlock tidal markets around the world “due to it being an optimised design for delivering low cost, reliable tidal energy”.
Hopes that marine energy could provide a bonanza for Scotland were dampened when some firms faced big challenges.Scottish wave power firms Pelamis and Aquamarine Energy called in administrators in November 2014 and October 2015 respectively.
The 2.5-year debentures issued by Orbital offer investors an annual return of 12%.
The fund-raising was the largest completed by Abundance.
Launched in 2012, Abundance has helped more than 30 green energy and social housing projects raise funds.
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