Tidal stream to mainstream: mechanical testing of composite tidal stream blades to de-risk operational design life.

Tidal energy has seen a surge of interest in recent years with several companies developing technology to harness the power of the world's oceans where the operational capacity in Europe was over 11 MW in 2020. One such developer is the partnership of SCHOTTEL Hydro (Germany) and Sustainable Marine (UK) who have developed a scalable multi-turbine device equipped with 70 kW turbines and capable of operating in arrays at sites around the world. The technology to harness tidal energy is still at a relatively early stage of development; hence, de-risking of component parts plays a vital role on the road to commercialisation.