astronomy

Orbital Marine Power

Orbital Marine Power is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Orbital Marine Power rather than just read about it. In short: Orbital Marine Power (formerly Scotrenewables Tidal Power Ltd) is a Scottish renewable energy company focused on the development and global deployment of floating tidal stream turbine technology. The company was founded in 2002, and as of 2024 has built and tested three different turbines.

Key takeaways

Orbital Marine Power belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Orbital Marine Power to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Orbital Marine Power from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Orbital Marine Power (formerly Scotrenewables Tidal Power Ltd) is a Scottish renewable energy company focused on the development and global deployment of floating tidal stream turbine technology. The company was founded in 2002, and as of 2024 has built and tested three different turbines. The floating turbine concept aims to reduce costs, as they can be towed to site and do not need large seabed foundations which can only be installed in the short periods of slack tide. The can also be towed back to shore for maintenance. The O2 is Orbital's first commercial turbine and represents the culmination of more than 15 years of product development in the UK. The 74 m long turbine is expected to operate in the waters off Orkney for the next 15–20 years with the capacity to meet the annual electricity demand of around 2,000 UK homes with clean, predictable power from the fast-flowing waters, while offsetting approximately 2,200 tonnes of CO2 production per year. In a further ground-breaking element of the project, the O2 will provide power to the European Marine Energy Centre's onshore electrolyser to generate green hydrogen that will be used to demonstrate decarbonisation of wider energy requirements. As of 28 July 2021, it is the most powerful tidal turbine in the world and is anchored in the Fall of Warness off Eday, Orkney Islands.

History Scotrenewables Tidal Power was founded in Orkney 2002 by Barry Johnston to develop floating tidal stream turbines. Having grown up in Orkney, he was acutely aware of the power of the tides. The company was rebranded as Orbital Marine Power in 2019, alongside a crowdfunding campaign that raised £7m towards constructing their first commercial turbine, the O2. Three versions of their floating tidal turbines have been built and tested, the SR250, the SR2000, and the O2. Orbital are now developing their next-generation O2-X turbines, with six expected to be deployed in Orkney between 2026 and 2028.

SR250 Orbital (then called Scotrenewables) was the first company in the world to successfully grid connect a floating tidal turbine, the SR250. This was a 250 kW rated machine, with twin contra-rotating 8 m diameter two-bladed rotors. These were mounted either side of the hull on 'rotor legs' that could be raised to limit draft when towing. The buoyant hull was a 34 m long, 2.3 m diameter tube. The device weighed 100 tonnes and was anchored by four catenary moorings via a quick connect turret on the hull tube. The rated current speed was 2.5 m/s (4.9 knots, 5.6 mph). The SR250 was constructed by Harland & Wolff in Belfast in 2010, being launched early in 2011 and towed to the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney. Initial tests were performed by towing the device through the water, achieving peak power for the first time in December 2011. The device was connected to the Orkney electricity grid in 2012.

SR2000 In 2012, Scotrenewables was awarded a £1.24m grant towards the £9.24m project to design and build the 2 MW SR2000 turbine. This was part of round two of the Wave & Tidal Energy: Research, Development & Demonstration Support (WATERS) scheme of the Scottish Government.

In 2016, the company launched the SR2000, at the time the world's most powerful tidal stream turbine, at 2 MW. The SR2000 produced in excess of 3 GWh of electricity over its initial 12-month continuous test programme. At the time this represented more power from a single turbine than had been generated cumulatively by the wave and tidal sector in Scotland over the 12 years prior to the launch of the SR2000. The SR2000 was also constructed by Harland & Wolff in Belfast, launched on 12 May 2016. This turbine had twin 16 m diameter rotors, a 63 m long hull, and weighed 550 tonnes. It first exported power to the grid in October 2016, and was tested until September 2018. The turbine was towed to Blyth, Northumberland for decommissioning by Thompsons of Prudhoe. The SR2000 was able to generate at rated power in significant wave heights of up to 2 metres (6.6 ft) and at reduced power in waves of up to 3.5 m (11 ft).

The Orbital O2 has twin 20 m diameter rotors, a 72 m long hull, and weighs 680 tonnes. The O2 incorporates key innovations and lessons from the company's previous prototype, the SR2000, that, on a like-for-like basis, enable a 35% improvement in yield at the EMEC site. The twin rotors have a combined swept area of over 600 square metres, the largest ever on a single tidal generating platform to date. Each rotor is connected to a 1 MW generator, with a rated current speed of 2.5 m/s (5.6 mph; 4.9 kn). The blades have the ability to pitch through 360°, enabling power to be captured from both tidal directions without need to yaw the entire platform. The turbine was constructed in Dundee, Scotland by Texo Group. The hull was produced by Grey Fabrication in Cupar, and the four composite blades were manufactured by A C Marine & Composites (ACMC) in Gosport. The entire structure was then protected from the elements out at sea by BROL-Coat Ltd. They gritblasted everything before applying over 4000 litres of paint, ultimately adding an extra 4t in weight. The O2 turbine was launched from the city into the Tay Estuary on 22 April 2021 via a submersible barge. It was then towed to the Fall of Warness site in April and grid connected in July 2021. The draft when towing is just 3 m. The floating structure is held on station with a four-point mooring system where each mooring chain has the capacity to lift over 50 double decker buses. Electricity is transferred from the turbine via a dynamic cable to the seabed and a static cable along the seabed to the local onshore electricity network.

O2-X The next-generation turbine, the O2-X will be able to generate 2.4 MW of renewable energy, and is designed to be adaptable to multiple sites. Orbital are working with Lloyd's Register to certify the turbine against International Electrotechnical Commission TS 62600–4, initially aiming for an IECRE Feasibility Statement, before full certification which would formally allow the move to serial production. The IECRE Feasibility Statement was issued by Lloyd's in early 2025.

Future deployments

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Orbital Marine Power

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Orbital Marine Power claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Orbital Marine Power before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Orbital Marine Power ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Orbital Marine Power

In research: Orbital Marine Power appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Orbital Marine Power in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Orbital Marine Power is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Coastal construction, Eday, Renewable energy, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Orbital Marine Power outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Orbital Marine Power in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Orbital Marine Power means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Orbital Marine Power out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Orbital Marine Power in simple terms?

Why does Orbital Marine Power matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Orbital Marine Power?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Orbital Marine Power.