TIGER Site Report - Isle of Wight
Files
Details
The Isle of Wight, off the South Coast of the UK, is an area of potential for tidal stream energy (TSE). The tidal flows in the wider region are significant, with areas of interest including the flow through the Solent (the channel between the Isle of Wight and the mainland), Portland Bill to the west and, most notably, the Perpetuus Tidal Energy Centre (PTEC) to the south of the Island.
PTEC is a state-of-the-art tidal energy generation project with strong local currents. The Isle of Wight has proximity to grid infrastructure and population centres in Hampshire. The PTEC project aims to showcase a range of commercial, industry-leading TSE technologies at the site. The current site is a 5km2 area and aims to be operational by 2027/2028. The initial plan is to deploy about ten tidal turbines, with a capacity of 20MW, about 2.5 km south of St Catherine’s Point. This would power 12,000 homes, equivalent to around 20% of the homes on the Isle of Wight or generate Green Hydrogen. Beyond this, there is the potential for higher capacity to be developed on the site, with up to 300MW estimated in some studies.
As well as PTEC, the Solent and Portland Bill are also TSE sites of interest. Within the Solent, close to Yarmouth Harbour, several tidal devices were tested, most notably Sustainable Marine Energy’s PLAT-O platform in 2014. More recently, QED Naval is setting up a test site in the area to test their community-scale Subhub platform. Portland Bill has been the subject of several studies, most notably by the University of Southampton [2]. It has been estimated that up to 300MW could be deployed in the vicinity, with interest previously expressed by MCT and SIMEC Atlantis Energy.
This site report describes the wider region, encompassing the Isle of Wight, and assesses the future TSE capacity that could be deployed
EN 
FR