DCNS at turning point in tidal turbines

DCNS, which is 35% owned by French defence group Thales and 64% by the French state, builds warships and submarines but aims to sell its first commercial tidal power system in four years and wants to achieve up to 25% of its sales from renewable marine energies by 2025. DCNS in 2013 bought Irish company OpenHydro, which generates power from turbines installed on the sea bed, and is working on pilot projects in France, Canada, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It has installed two 16m tidal turbines in Paimpol-Brehat, Brittany, for French power company EDF which will be connected to the French power grid this summer. “We have reached a turning point in tidal turbines, we are entering the pre-industrial phase,” said DCNS head of energy and marine infrastructures Mr Thierry Kalanquin. For now, revenue from the tidal current business is still close to zero, but DCNS expects to start selling its first turbines in 2017-2018 for pilot projects and from 2020 it expects to sell its first commercial tidal turbine farms. “We hope to get one billion euros in sales in tidal turbines in ten years,” he said, adding that he sees a big market in Canada, Britain, the U.S. and Asia. DCNS – which had 2015 net profit of 58 million euros on turnover of 3 billion euros – has invested about 150 million euros in buying Open Hydro and funding further research. Kalanquin said that globally potential sites with a combined capacity about 100 GW had been identified, but only about 25 GW of this can be commercially operated today, which represents a global market worth around 75 billion euros. “We aim to win a 20 to 25% market share,” he added. Kalanquin called on the French government to speed up planned tenders for construction of tidal current turbine power farms, with commercially viable scale of more than 100 MW. DCNS will install 7 pilot turbines in Raz Blanchard for EDF in 2018.