Enermar Pilot Plant

The Enermar Pilot Plant was launched in 2001 in the Strait of Messina financed by Ponte di Archimede S.p.A., the Regione Siciliana Government and the European Community, featuring the installation of the Kobold turbine. The project site was 150 m offshore the Sicilian coast in the Strait of Messina, where the average speed of the tidal current is between 1.5-2 m/s, although there are some areas in the strait where the velocity peaks can reach more than 3 m/s. While the turbine installed for this project had a maximum rated capacity of 70 kW, at 2 m/s it only produced about 25–30 kW. In 2006, the Kobold turbine became one of the first marine devices to be connected to a national electricity grid.
The mooring system for the Kobold vertical-axis turbine consisted of four anchoring blocks in water depths of 18 to 25 m. The turbine (a 6 m cross-flow rotor, equipped with three blades with a span of 5 m) was installed under a buoyant support platform, designed by Ponte di Archimede International, that housed the gearbox, a 160 kW synchronous generator and the necessary electrical equipment.

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Project Manager

Ponte di Archimede International SpA PdA

Additional Information

Project Website

Project Status Is the project actively being planned or is deployed in the water (active)? Or was the project canceled or completed (inactive)?

Inactive

Project Life Cycle Project Progress through life cycle:<ul> <li>Planned: Project has identified a deployment location and is preparing for deployment</li> <li>Operational: Project is deployed in the water and is active</li> <li>Completed: Project was previously deployed in the water</li> <li>Decommissioned: Installation has been fully removed in accordance with regulations</li> <li>Canceled: Project was canceled before being deployed in the water</li></ul>

Completed

Max Rated Power Capacity The maximum amount of electricity that can be produced by project, based on available resources and device nameplate capacity.

0.03 MW

Operational Duration

2001 - 2016

Project Duration

2001 - 2016

Energy Resource

Tidal

Project Scale

Full-scale

Number of Devices

1

Grid Connectivity

Grid Connected

Waterbody

Strait of Messina

Site Characteristics Geographic characterization for the project location:<ul> <li>Open Ocean: Main body of ocean, not enclosed or partially enclosed by land</li> <li>Coastal: Open water near the coast, spanning between land and shelf boundary</li> <li>Enclosed Bay: water that is partially surrounded by land, with a mouth open to larger water</li> <li>Constricted Channel: A channel where water flows quickly due to narrowing by the land</li> <li>River: Water flowing from land towards a larger body of water</li></ul>

Constricted Channel

Country

Italy

Environmental Details

Tethys Metadata

Last Modified

10 June 2025

This Project has the following MRE Devices

Citation Formats

“Enermar Pilot Plant.” Marine Energy Projects Database: Projects, PRIMRE, United States Department of Energy, https:https://openei.org/wiki/PRIMRE/Databases/Projects_Database/Projects/Enermar_Pilot_Plant. Accessed <day> <monthRoman> <year>.

Marine Energy Projects Database: Projects. <year>. "Enermar Pilot Plant." Accessed <monthRoman> <day>, <year>. https:https://openei.org/wiki/PRIMRE/Databases/Projects_Database/Projects/Enermar_Pilot_Plant.

PRIMRE/Databases/Projects Database/Projects/Enermar Pilot Plant

Enermar Pilot Plant

This Project has the following MRE Devices

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