JFMS Secures Work on EnFAIT Project
James Fisher Marine Services (JFMS) will be providing specialist marine engineering and consultancy services for the recently awarded €20-million European tidal energy project consortium, Enabling Future Arrays in Tidal (EnFAIT),
The project, led by Nova Innovation, aims to increase the commercial viability of tidal power and highlight its effectiveness as a source of reliable and predictable renewable energy.
JFMS will be involved in several areas of the project, including using its marine operations software Mermaid to help optimise the project’s operational strategies.
James Croftson, senior project engineer at JFMS, explained: “We are very happy to join with Nova in this consortium project, as it utilises skills and systems that have been developed with operational effectiveness of tidal power in mind.”
EnFAIT will extend the array of tidal turbines at Nova’s existing operational tidal energy site in Bluemull Sound off the Shetland Islands in Scotland, to allow the project to generate real-world results from day one.
Working alongside Nova, JFMS will also assist in the design of intelligent subsea tooling, the development of subsea array architecture to connect the turbines to shore and the design of foundation structures to enable turbines to be relocated.
Speaking of the EnFAIT project, Simon Forrest, chief executive officer of Nova Innovation, said: “The project will make a major contribution to reducing the lifetime costs of tidal energy, and will boost investor confidence by providing hard-edged analytics of commercial and operational performance to inform investment decisions. We are looking forward to achieving further world-class results, working with our consortium partners.”
EnFAIT, which began in July 2017 and will continue until 2022, was awarded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme that is dedicated to developing marine energy sources and demonstrate the tidal powers effectiveness in European waters.
