Sealing the world’s most powerful tidal turbine

Orbital Marine Power is an innovative Scottish engineering company focused on the development of a turbine technology generating energy from tidal currents. Orbital’s floating tidal stream turbine O2 enters operation in 2021 at the European Marine Energy Centre, EMEC, off the coast of Orkney. It will be anchored at EMEC’s site in the Fall of Warness where tidal speeds can exceed 3m/s and provide clean and sustainable electricity to power more than 1,700 UK homes every year.

Safety and efficiency

Roxtec sealing solutions will help protect the turbine’s control systems and ensure operational reliability. Roxtec transits are being used to create dustproof and watertight seals where electrical control and instrumentation cables pass through compartments in the turbine’s hull, and between its nacelles and pitching hubs.

Orbital’s team used the web-based engineering tool Roxtec Transit Designer™ to save time during the project’s planning and installation phases. The software allowed Orbital’s designers to quickly and simply produce detailed drawings of cable and pipe transit locations within the turbine.

Appreciated partnership

“It is great to have access to the expertise, understanding and proven capabilities of suppliers like Roxtec; it helps make our lives easier and our product better, so we were more than happy to continue our relationship with Roxtec in developing solutions for the O2,” says Andrew Scott, Orbital’s CEO.

Roxtec transits withstand the harsh marine environment. The system is designed for cost-efficiency, enabling multiple cables of varying sizes to be sealed in fewer openings. This flexible design speeds up the installation process and ensures future upgrades and maintenance work will be time and cost effective.

Why use Roxtec?

• Online engineering tool
• Certified protection against multiple risks
• Multiple cables and pipes in each opening
• Flexibility for cables and pipes of different sizes
• Cost-efficient upgrades and maintenance work