Scottish Firm BiFab Wins New Contract to Build Prototype Tidal Energy Turbine

It now seems that the Scottish firm BiFab has just recently won a big victory. In fact, the firm has just won a £4 million contract to build a prototype tidal energy turbine. This means that there is now a prospect of thousands of new jobs for Scotland and that this contract is not just good news for the energy market but for the unemployment market as well.

This new contract could kick-start a marine energy manufacturing boom all over Britain. This is because the project developer, ScottishPower, wants hundreds more turbines to be built in the next few years.

BiFab, which is based in Fife, traditionally manufactures equipment for the North Sea oil and gas industry. However, today it will be named as winner of this new contract to build the tidal energy turbine. The company has been given the task to build the first full scale working prototype device for ScottishPower. This is a turbine that ScottishPower says is the world’s most advanced.

The design of the turbine will be used for the 10MW tidal energy project that will be off the west coast of Scotland. This project is the largest in the UK and potentially the world. Just this month ScottishPower submitted a planning application for the project in the fast moving channel between the islands of Jura and Islay. The company intends to tender contracts in two years’ time for manufacture of the projects 10 1mw turbines.

ScottishPower was just recently given a license by the Crown Estate to develop a 95MW project in Pentland Firth. Manufacturing costs are expected to fall as techniques are refined and contracts for both of these projects are likely to be worth more than £100 million.