ORBITAL Marine Power, Scottish-based developer of leading floating tidal turbine technology, has raised £1 million in a week.

Orbital is nearing completion of its fully funded first commercial 2MW unit, the Orbital O2, which will be installed in the waters off the Orkney Islands early next year, where it is claimed it will be “the world’s most powerful operational tidal turbine”.

Members of the Orbital community who received early access to the company’s crowdfunding campaign pushed the company past its £1m target in less than a week and now the raise, hosted on Crowdcube, is open to the wider public for further investment.

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Andrew Scott, Orbital chief executive, said: “This level of endorsement and support is inspiring for us, that our vision as a business for helping to turn the tide on climate change resonates with so many people is really rewarding.

“I look forward, with pleasure, to bringing onboard our fantastic new shareholders whose commitment will be hugely motivational for the entire team at Orbital.

"This is a very exciting time for us and by overfunding we will be able to further ramp-up our commercialisation activities and accelerate the deployment of our technology at scale, an objective which can’t come soon enough in the effort to tackle climate change."