• Renewable energy

A swell job done by Mojo

Mojo Maritime has led the successful and speedy installation of the first Welsh tidal energy generator, DeltaStream in Pembrokeshire.

Leading tidal energy marine operations contractor Mojo Maritime (Mojo) was called in at the end of last year to help Tidal Energy Ltd install its prototype turbine in the extreme tidal waters of Ramsey Sound. This successful mission follows just three months after Mojo's central role in the completion of the installation of the export cables for the massive MeyGen tidal project and identifies the company as a clear market leader in tidal energy installations.

It was a tough job: December 2015 saw some of the UK's most extreme weather conditions with up to 60 knot winds and 5m waves as the team battled to successfully meet the end-of-year deadline.

The Mojo team was tasked with project managing the initial cable intervention works followed by the safe installation of the 200 tonne DeltaStream turbine (which is 16m long and 18m high) plus ancillary monitoring equipment. The work was completed safely, successfully and within the target timescale, despite the challenging conditions.

Mojo's marine project planning system, Mermaid, was used to help pin-point a short tidal window during a really bad patch of weather, where significant wind and waves made the site unworkable at times.

'We had to work through a quick succession of storms, one after the other, which provided an extra element of difficulty,'

says Mojo project manager, Gary Brown.

Once the cable was installed, the turbine was connected up, lowered on to the seabed and positioned, through both spring and neap tides in constantly varying water depths, current speeds and weather conditions. 

Mojo employed the same DP vessel and specialist dynamic positioning team it had previously worked with on Meygen, and the sophisticated cable handling software which was adopted especially for MeyGen was also used in the DeltaStream project.

Mojo managing director, Richard Parkinson, praised the entire Mojo team but singled out senior naval architect, Simon Hindley (who worked across both recent tidal energy projects), as being crucial to the project's success.

Once up and running, DeltaStream is one of the first grid-connected demonstration devices in the world to generate green, sustainable and predictable tidal power.

Chris Williams, development director of TEL comments;

'We would like to thank Mojo for their hard work, resilience and support which has helped us reach this pivotal milestone.'