Orbital Marine Power Westray Tidal Array

The Westray Tidal Array project aims to install around 70 of Orbital Marine Power's O2 tidal turbine devices at Westray Firth, Orkney, with a total generating capacity of 170 MW. To ensure station-keeping, each device will be attached via four mooring lines connected to either rock drilled or gravity anchors and there will be four anchors per device, or anchor sharing if deemed technically achievable following detailed design. The site is expected to need up to five 33 kV electrical export cables. These would pass through the EMEC Fall of Warness Eday Tidal Test Site with the cable landfall and grid connection at EMEC’s onshore connection point. This project was previously under development by DP Energy and was transferred to Orbital Marine Power in March 2023. Details about the original project can be found here.

www.scottishrenewables.com

Project Manager

Orbital Marine Power

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)?

Active

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>

Planned

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

170 MW

Project Start Year

2023

Energy Resource

Tidal

Project Scale

Full-scale

Number of Devices

70

Waterbody

Westray Firth, Orkney Islands

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>

Coastal

Country

United Kingdom

Environmental Details

Tethys Metadata

Last Modified

15 May 2025

This Project has the following MRE Devices

Citation Formats

“Orbital Marine Power Westray Tidal Array.” Marine Energy Projects Database: Projects, PRIMRE, United States Department of Energy, https:https://openei.org/wiki/PRIMRE/Databases/Projects_Database/Projects/Orbital_Marine_Power_Westray_Tidal_Array. Accessed <day> <monthRoman> <year>.

Marine Energy Projects Database: Projects. <year>. "Orbital Marine Power Westray Tidal Array." Accessed <monthRoman> <day>, <year>. https:https://openei.org/wiki/PRIMRE/Databases/Projects_Database/Projects/Orbital_Marine_Power_Westray_Tidal_Array.

PRIMRE/Databases/Projects Database/Projects/Orbital Marine Power Westray Tidal Array

Orbital Marine Power Westray Tidal Array

This Project has the following MRE Devices

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