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New tidal turbines launched in Strangford Lough

Researchers from the Centre for Advanced Sustainable Energy (CASE) have installed new turbines to harness the powerful tidal currents coursing through the mouth of the Lough.

VATTS boat on Strangford Lough

The new turbines, installed in early 2022, rotate about a vertical axis, rather than the horizontal axis of conventional fan-like turbines – hence the name of the project: Vertical Axis Tidal Turbines in Strangford (VATTS).

“Strangford Lough is ideally located for tidal testing”, says Dr Carwyn Frost, principal investigator on the project. “It’s a very high flow environment between Strangford Lough itself and the Irish Sea, so there is a narrow inlet between these two large bodies of water, so as the tides rise and fall water rushes in and out of these narrows, that allow us to have these really high velocities, which is really important for tidal energy extraction”.

This marks an important stage in the VATTS project, launched in 2021 with funding from CASE and Invest NI, and to help spread the word, the team have launched a video on the project.

Find out more about CASE here.

Watch the video here:

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