In the TiPA project, a consortium of European partners developed an innovative direct drive power take-off (PTO) subsystem for tidal turbines. The project ran from 2016 to 2019.
A prototype TiPA device successfully completed 12 weeks of performance testing at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and over six months subsea testing in Rosyth, Scotland.
The TiPA product delivers significant advantages over alternative solutions currently on the market. Through increased efficiency and reliability compared to standard geared drive-trains, maintenance costs are cut by 45%, and the lifetime cost of tidal energy is slashed by 29%. This ground-breaking result takes the tidal energy sector a huge step closer to commercial reality.
The primary route to market for commercialising the technology is embedding the PTO in the tidal turbines of project coordinator, Nova Innovation. TiPA technology is incorporated in Nova’s M100D tidal turbine, a prototype of which was installed in 2020 at Nova’s grid-connected tidal energy array in Shetland, Scotland, under the H2020 EnFAIT project. The device has demonstrated outstanding performance, validating the TiPA project results.

