Orbital Marine Power completes £8 million operational finance for O2 tidal power turbine off Orkney
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THE world's most powerful tidal turbine has received a major boost after developer Orbital Marine Power completed deals to secure multi-million pound operational finance for it.
The funding, which was secured through the Scottish National Investment Bank and the Abundance Investment platform, follows the successful completion of the construction and commission phase of its two megawatt O2 turbine.
These debt facilities will be serviced by the long-term sale of electricity from the turbine, forecast at around 100 gigawatt hours of clean predictable energy, delivered to the UK grid or hydrogen electrolysers over its project life.
The first element of the funding is a £4 million investment from the Scottish National Investment Bank. Orbital said the support of the bank represented an "institutional vote of confidence" in the company’s trajectory.
The second element is a £4 million 12-year debenture offer which has been funded by over a thousand individual investors from Abundance Investment. It helps to refinance a construction debenture raised through Abundance in 2019, which was the platform’s largest single raise of this type. The firm said that the success of this approach showed high public support for the company, the technology and tidal stream power.
Taken together, this important financial milestone demonstrates how the technology is moving towards established infrastructure investment profiles by leveraging significant levels of commercial project debt, further underlining a clear path towards future scale.
The latest funding also supplements recent private sector support for the company. In late 2021, Orbital secured equity investment from TechnipFMC, a leading technology provider to the traditional and new energy industries, with a proven track record of successfully delivering large-scale, fully integrated offshore energy projects to customers around the world.
Andrew Scott, CEO of Orbital Marine Power, said: “Completing operational finance for the first O2 is a significant moment for Orbital. Closing this funding demonstrates strong institutional and public support for the company, our proven technology and our pioneering approach to tidal stream power.
“Tidal stream energy has a vital role to play in delivering clean, predictable energy as a complementary part of the broader clean energy transition. Following today’s announcement, Orbital is well-placed to continue developing further projects, benefitting our wide-reaching UK supply chain.”
Mark Munro, executive director, Scottish National Investment Bank, said: “The bank’s investment in Orbital aligns with our mission to support home-grown innovation and the just energy transition.
"The company’s unique and scalable approach to tidal stream energy has an important role to play in the journey towards net zero, and its focus on a domestic supply chain and strong Orkney heritage also has significant potential to benefit Scotland more broadly.”
Bruce Davis, joint managing director of Abundance Investment, added: “Our investors are proud to have mobilised their money to support Orbital Marine Power in their quest to make tidal stream energy a key pillar of the UK energy sustainability and security. From its origins as a world beating record crowdfunding investment we look forward to helping to finance a future world beating industry.”
