Mike Wilson

The SMART: SCOTLAND feasibility grant is a Scottish Enterprise research and development grant that aims to support projects which display high levels of technical innovation and technical challenge with strong commercial potential. The grant enables companies to conduct technical feasibility studies to show how an idea can work in the real world.

The grant will enable Aberdeenshire-based, Rivtide Power to develop a Mark 2 prototype of its Mass of Water Turbine (MOWT). MOWT is a hydrokinetic turbine that effectively generates power from slow flowing water such as rivers, tidal estuaries and ocean currents. The system is entirely scalable from low kilowatts to multi-megawatts. The MOWT technology is patent protected.

Following significant internal investment, an initial prototype system was deployed in 2021, followed by computational modelling and verification which has led to the design of the Mark 2 system. This SMART: SCOTLAND project will give Rivtide Power the opportunity to fully develop, manufacture and deploy the Mark 2 prototype turbine in a marine environment and prove the feasibility of the turbine system by generating electricity from slow flowing water. The firm also plans to secure further private investment in the near future, with discussions ongoing with a number of interested parties.

A Marine Scotland study estimated that Scottish waters hold 25% of Europe’s tidal energy resource and therefore has the potential to significantly contribute to Scotland’s future energy requirements.

Mike Wilson, chairman of MWNW Consulting, said: “We are delighted to have secured this substantial grant from Scottish Enterprise. It is a great achievement for our team to have our technology recognised in this way by Scottish Enterprise and we are very much looking forward to building and deploying our turbine during this project.”

“The system that we will deploy through this feasibility project is relatively small scale in terms of power output but there are many applications for this scale of turbine. From providing reliable power to a riverside business, to providing predictable renewable power to offshore assets, to producing green hydrogen, MOWT has many uses. We have also computationally verified the scalability of the system so we are confident that it will also work on a larger scale.”

“We believe MOWT is a complementary technology to other tidal turbine systems as MOWT has been designed to harness energy effectively from areas of slow flowing water, whereas other turbines are designed for faster flowing water. Scotland has such a rich tidal resource, and we believe that together with other developers, Rivtide Power and our MOWT system can be part of the solution to ensuring that Scotland meets its net zero targets. Looking into the future, we believe that our technology has the potential to power microgrid systems for isolated and island communities and be exported globally. This SMART: SCOTLAND feasibility project is the next step in our journey.”

Rhona Allison, managing director of Business Growth at Scottish Enterprise, added: “Rivtide Power’s prototype MOWT technology is a great example of the type of innovative project SMART: Scotland feasibility grants were designed to support. With its ambitions to promote greater use of renewable electricity from slow-flowing water, generate green hydrogen, scale up for larger production and target energy export markets, Rivtide has the potential to play an important part in Scotland’s net zero transformation.”