RealTide Partners

The RealTide coordinator is Bureau Veritas and the other partners are

  • Sabella
  • Institut Francais de Recerche pour l'Exploitation de la MER (IFREMER)
  • 1-Tech
  • Ingeteam Powert Technology S.A.
  • EnerOcean S.L.
  • The University of Edinburgh

Bureau Veritas

Bureau Veritas logo

Founded in 1828, Bureau Veritas is the world´s second largest group in conformity assessment and certification services. BV helps more than 400,000 clients worldwide to improve their performances by offering services and innovative solutions to ensure that their assets, products infrastructure and management systems meet all quality, health and safety, environmental and social responsibility standards and regulations. BV works in eight different segments covering a complete portfolio of certification and assessment activities: Marine & Offshore, Industry, In Service Verification & Inspection, Construction, Certification, Commodities, Consumer Products Services, Government Services & International Trade.

Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore Division has a wide experience in ships and offshore platforms classification, ship and marine equipment certification and technical assistance. Bureau Veritas performs studies and class of ship and offshore technologies, including the emerging Marine Renewable Energy (MRE) sector, in various technical fields covering in particular risk analysis, hydrodynamics, structural reliability, energy efficiency, safety, environmental impact assessment and software development. For the purpose of approval, surveyors refer to Bureau Veritas rules, which are continuously maintained and updated, and internationally recognized standards.


University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh logo

The University of Edinburgh is one of the largest and most successful universities in the UK with an international reputation as a centre of academic excellence. Its international character is reflected in its student population, which comprises of 2,000 European students and 3,442 International students (out of a total population of around 24,500 students) from over 120 different countries worldwide. It can also be found in its truly international staff and in its joint research and other links with overseas universities, institutes, companies and governments. UEDIN is the leading research university in Scotland and one of Britain’s leading research universities. The recent Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) results ranked Edinburgh 4th in the UK. It is ranked the 15th most employable university in the world by the 2013 Global Employability University Ranking. It is also a member of both the Russell Group, and the League of European Research Universities, a consortium of 21 research universities in Europe. More specifically the REF 2014 results revealed that 83% of the University’s research activity is in the highest categories and classified as ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. Its submission was one of the largest and most comprehensive in the UK and almost all members of staff at the university are research active. Edinburgh is also one of a select group of British universities to achieve outstanding results when demonstrating the impact of its research on wider society. The long standing collaboration between the Universities of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt led to a joint submission in Engineering ranked in 1st place by volume.

Edinburgh also hosts FloWave, a circular basin that allows waves and currents to be created in any relative direction across its 17 metres diameter, 2m deep, test section. The facility is optimised for 700mm, two second period waves, with 168 absorbing wave-makers paddles that create full-spectrum multi-directional waves as well as more monochromatic waves. Depending on the scale chosen the central test area corresponds to fullscale seas of up to 28m waves, currents in excess of 12 knots, and a sea-area of approximately 2 square kilometres. The FloWave basin will be used to test model tidal turbines in RealTide.


EnerOcean

EnerOcean logo

EnerOcean S.L. is a marine services, research intensive SME founded in 2007 based in Málaga (Spain). The company has an international set of promoters with knowledge and experience in offshore oil & gas, manufacturing, energy and civil engineering industries. Initially, its activities focused on the study of the marine resources and its exploitation in Mediterranean and the region of Cádiz on Spain’s Atlantic coastline but is today an internationally active small company. EnerOcean is dedicated to adapting and applying innovative technologies from the entire world in the marine energy engineering field. The company had several contracts with public & private clients, and works closely with one of the world’s leading research groups in Operational Oceanography, at Cádiz University, as well as with other Universities and R&D centers.


SABELLA

SABELLA logo

Founded in 2007, SABELLA is an engineering and project management company in the field of marine current turbines, based in Quimper (Brittany, France). SABELLA has 15 employees with various and complementary backgrounds and skills, including mechanics, hydrodynamics, electricity, offshore operations, environment, computer science, numerical modelling, marketing, finances, etc.

In 2008, SABELLA installed the first French marine current turbine, Sabella D03, in South Brittany, in the Odet Estuary near Bénodet. The objective of the project was to validate the concept and make technological adaptations whilst demonstrating to the French authorities the relevance of this method of energy generation. It also allowed demonstrating the inoffensiveness of the technology towards marine environment and especially marine fauna.

In 2009, SABELLA bid to a call for proposals for "Ocean Energy Demonstrators" from the ADEME (French Agency for Environment and Energy Management), in partnership with IFREMER and Bureau Veritas. In a competition against twenty-one demonstrator projects, "Sabella D10" was the confirmed winner of this call for proposals. The Sabella D10 turbine was designed between 2011 and 2013. The construction of this full scale demonstrator took place between 2012 and 2015, entirely in Europe. After a commissioning phase, the device was connected to the Ushant power grid in early November 2015. Sabella D10 became the first ocean renewable energy system grid connected in France.


1-Tech

1-Tech logo

1-Tech is an independent energy innovation SME based in Brussels, specialised in new energy and clean technologies and dedicated to bringing forward new concepts and solutions to bridge the gap between research, demonstration, policy and markets. The company has its own, independent expertise in R&D covering conventional as well as renewable energy and works with technology developers, energy companies, SME’s, public authorities and research institutions across Europe. 1-Tech undertakes project design, project management and targeted information & dissemination activities and is also active towards the financial sector in an independent advisory function.


IFREMER

IFREMER logo

IFREMER is the French Ocean Research Institute. Through studies and expert assessments, IFREMER contributes to knowledge about the oceans and its resources, the monitoring of marine and coastal zones and the sustainable development of maritime activities. For these goals, it designs and operates observational, experimental and monitoring tools and facilities. IFREMER manages the French ocean research fleet for the whole scientific community. Created by decree in 1984, IFREMER is a public institute of industrial and commercial nature. It is placed under the joint supervision of the ministries for Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and the Sea; for Higher Education and Research; for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries. Among ten structuring orientations for 2020, may be noted:

  • promote sustainable use of mineral and energy resources,
  • promote shared capacity for technological innovation,
  • missions of development, management and open access of large research infrastructures – fleet, calculation means, data centres, experimental facilities – which are made available to the National and European scientific community, but also scope of public/private research

The Marine Structures Laboratory

​The Marine Structures Laboratory, with 40 permanent staff, is actively involved in research on hydrodynamics, with test tanks in Brest and Boulogne-sur-Mer, and Material Durability. Indeed, a key element in ensuring the long term reliability of ocean energy systems is the selection and qualification of the materials employed. IFREMER has unique experience in this area, having performed studies of materials in the marine environment for over 20 years.


Ingeteam

Ingeteam logo

​Ingeteam is an industrial group that manufactures power and control electronics (inverters, frequency converters, controllers and protections), generators, motors and pumps. In addition, it develops electrical engineering and automation projects. The company completes its solution range with operation & maintenance (O&M) services. The key sectors for Ingeteam are:

  1. Wind, PV, hydro and fossil fuel power generation
  2. Metal processing industry
  3. Marine
  4. Rail traction
  5. Power grid, including substations
  6. Energy transport and distribution

Ingeteam operates throughout the world, employing 3,800 persons. Within the group, Ingeteam Power Technology, S.A. focuses on power electronics, control electronics, automation projects and O&M under the brand "Ingeteam Service". Since 1999, Ingeteam Service provides all-inclusive O&M (Operation and Maintenance) and special services to renewable energy plants. At the present time, it employs more than 1.500 professionals and manages an asset portfolio of more than 10 GW. Around 6.500MW are Onshore and Offshore Wind Farms, 2.5MW are Photovoltaic Solar Plants and the remaining are hydroelectric and biomass.


Bureau Veritas Solutions Marine & Offshore

Bureau Veritas Solutions Marine & Offshore logo

Bureau Veritas Solutions Marine & Offshore is the new worldwide organisation for consulting and outsourcing services from Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore with offices in France, Greece, Italy, Germany, Singapore and China.

Aimed at answering the needs of marine and offshore industries for technical advisory, asset management and assurance solutions, BV Solutions M&O brings together people expertise and advanced technologies to deliver proactive and tailored services, offering value to clients through innovative technical solutions.

We go beyond pure compliance to enable our clients' assets to perform with more reliability, more efficiency and at a significantly reduced level of risk, in an ever more digital world. Our objective is to provide and maintain one of the most global independent offer available including numerical and experimental engineering services, risk, reliability and maintenance services.

Our network allows us to be ever closer to our customers, guarantee of the most efficient collaboration.

In France, BV Solutions M&O brings together the services and people from former companies Tecnitas and HydrOcean, together with Bureau Veritas M&O Services Department. The team of about 40 engineers is organised around technical experts with international references committed to deliver yearly more than 200 projects on budget and on schedule, with the highest standard of quality.

Our main activities are advisory and engineering services based on:

  • Expert team in naval architecture, marine engineering, risk analysis
  • Numerical simulation tools, including state of the art and innovative CFD solvers, Finite Element solvers, CAD, stability software
  • Tests and measurements performed at model scale or on-board with a dedicated team able to operate and supervise in partners’ facilities

Our strong culture of service and quality makes us able to solve new or complex Client issues and deliverer well-packaged top-tier solutions to enable and de-risk projects while optimizing costs.