County Limerick company's powerful breakthrough in clean energy

A county Limerick company has passed a major milestone in its revolutionary bid to harness the kinetic energy of rivers, estuaries and tidal flows with a special turbine and generate electricity. 

DesignPro Renewables, based in Rathkeale, in conjunction with Leask Marine Ltd,  have successfully completed testing of their 60KW turbine, the DPR60, in the Orkney Islands off the Scottish coast and can now move on to developing the prototype to commercial level.

The original turbine prototype was first tested in the Shannon estuary. 

The primary end users of such  turbines will be remote or island communities and businesses that are off-grid or grid poor and who are forced to use diesel generators as their only viable option. 

“Our 60kW device can provide a clean, independent and predictable supply of electricity to these users, removing the burden and constant drain of funds spent on polluting diesel fuel thus improving quality of life and creating positive change,” Róisín  McCormack, the company’s sales and marketing manager said this week. 

Ms McCormack added that they were very excited about the test results from the Orkney Island which follow on from  favourable results from testing of the company’s 25KW turbines in France. 

The potential for these turbines, once they are commercially available, is huge, Ms McCormack added. 

“In Europe alone, the ocean energy industry plans to deploy 100GW of production capacity by 2050, meeting 10% of electricity demand.

“That’s enough to meet the daily electricity needs of 76 million households,” she pointed out. 

The DesignPro system stands out due to the predictability of the power it generates,  its ability to provide baseload power and its ability to generate more power in lower flows thanks to its patented bluff body concept. 

The device itself  is a floating platform with turbines underwater and is deployed via a mooring system, which can be tailored for either a unidirectional or bidirectional flow and can be easily moved if needed.

Another key feature is that the rotation direction is adjusted so that objects are diverted away from, and outside, the turbines.

This significantly mitigates the risk of injury to marine life, the impact of debris on the turbines and any danger to users or damage to the turbines themselves. 

Leask Marine Ltd,  a marine construction and engineering company with offices in both Ireland and the UK, won the tender for the design and build of DesignPro’s 60kW unit and led the testing in Scotland. 

“The team at Leask have done an exceptional job at managing and delivering what has been a very ambitious project,” said Vincent McCormack, Innovation Manager at DesignPro Renewables. 

“Their knowledge and experience are second to none and meant the most efficient means of reaching the project goals were identified and followed.

The team have a great hands-on and positive attitude that gets results and we couldn’t recommend them enough.”