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PRIMRE/Databases/Projects Database/Projects/Etel Estuary Tidal Energy Trial
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Etel Estuary Tidal Energy Trial
Scottish company Nova Innovation installed one of its tidal energy turbines at the Étel Estuary located in France's Brittany region in 2023. The installment in France was delivered as a part of the European Union's ELEMENT (Effective Lifetime Extension in the Marine Environment for Tidal Energy) project in partnership with the European Climate, Infrastructure, and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA). A novel control system was designed as part of the project specifically for tidal energy. This included software design for the control operations and hardware design to enable the new control system to be added to the turbines.
The RE50 turbine was successfully deployed and operated at the Étel estuary in France, enabling the performance of the turbine control system to be assessed in a real world estuary environment. This built upon the earlier onshore testing and provided vital data and experience operating in estuaries and rivers. This opens up a whole new market with the potential to supply towns, cities and coastal communities near rivers with clean, predictable electricity.
Additional Information
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:
- Planned: Project has identified a deployment location and is preparing for deployment
- Operational: Project is deployed in the water and is active
- Completed: Project was previously deployed in the water
- Decommissioned: Installation has been fully removed in accordance with regulations
- Canceled: Project was canceled before being deployed in the water
Completed
Max Rated Power Capacity
The maximum amount of electricity that can be produced by project, based on available resources and device nameplate capacity.
0.05 MW
Operational Duration
February 2023 - April 2023
Project Duration
2022 - 2023
Energy Resource
- Tidal
Project Scale
Full-scale
Number of Devices
1
Grid Connectivity
Grid Connected
Waterbody
Etel Estuary
Site Characteristics
Geographic characterization for the project location:
- Open Ocean: Main body of ocean, not enclosed or partially enclosed by land
- Coastal: Open water near the coast, spanning between land and shelf boundary
- Enclosed Bay: water that is partially surrounded by land, with a mouth open to larger water
- Constricted Channel: A channel where water flows quickly due to narrowing by the land
- River: Water flowing from land towards a larger body of water
Enclosed Bay
Country
France
Last Modified
10 June 2025
This Project has the following MRE Devices
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Citation Formats
“Etel Estuary Tidal Energy Trial.” Marine Energy Projects Database: Projects, PRIMRE, United States Department of Energy, https://openei.org/wiki/PRIMRE/Databases/Projects_Database/Projects/Etel_Estuary_Tidal_Energy_Trial. Accessed <day> <monthRoman> <year>.
Marine Energy Projects Database: Projects. <year>. "Etel Estuary Tidal Energy Trial." Accessed <monthRoman> <day>, <year>. https://openei.org/wiki/PRIMRE/Databases/Projects_Database/Projects/Etel_Estuary_Tidal_Energy_Trial.
