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This is an impressive achievement and the team involved should be commended. The decision not to service TTG3 this time is particularly interesting - it suggests they are running this turbine to failure. With three turbines operating, monthly output should return above 1GWh early next year.

Looking at the broader picture, this means the array will remain below full capacity for the foreseeable future. The operational experience gained has come at significant cost, both in terms of unplanned maintenance and lost generation. This reinforces the importance of demonstrable reliability improvements before Phase 2 can proceed.

On redeployment timing: TTG1 will likely wait until there's other site work planned. The AR3000 deployment is the obvious candidate, though that's probably 12+ months away depending on fabrication schedules. The new piled substructure could arrive sooner. Will be interesting to see how the Scottish Enterprise grant supports this next phase of development.

Well spotted Dave - that’s an Andritz turbine.

I might have missed it, but the only turbine I didn't see the vessel visiting on this trip is Andritz TTG3, which I think is the one that has been deployed for 7 years.

The vessel is positioned near TTG1 this morning.

In September the company said there was an export cable fault for one turbine that would be repaired in this operation. That announcement was preceded by a 25% drop in output from April to June, indicating that one turbine was out of commission. There was a similar drop in output from August to October, which suggests that another turbine has gone offline, but that has not yet been confirmed by the company. It is possible they are doing other work while they have the vessel on-site, but each of these operations costs about £700k, or about 2 months worth of revenue (2024 revenue was £4.3 million), so this would be a very expensive way to do routine maintenance.

So far the boat has been moving between the locations of TTG2 (an Andritz turbine) and TTG4 (Proteus). It's currently back working at TTG4.

The vessel is back above TTG4 - more evidence that the AR1500 needs intervention. I'll wait for confirmation from the company, but if so that's disappointing since it's only been deployed since December last year. Meanwhile one Andritz turbine has operated for at least 6.5 years (maybe 7 years now?) without any maintenance at all.

Turbine locations are given in this report. Looks like the vessel visited TTG2 (Andritz) last night and just spent 90 minutes at TTG4 (Proteus).

https://marine.gov.scot/sites/default/files/6._appendix_2-2_mey-1a-40-hse-005-f-nspconstructionworks_redacted.pdf

Well spotted OT. That looks like the base for the Proteus AR1500 turbine sitting quayside. You can see the old Atlantis logo on the turbine sitting on this base in this picture.

https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/07/07/17/Climate_Tidal_Energy_03964.jpg

The vessel is on its way to site.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:201743/mmsi:258607000/imo:9665530/vessel:NORMAND_VISION

Oldtramp - I assume the vessel has gone to Nigg to pick up the lifting gear for turbine recovery.

The Normad Vision is en route to Nigg.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:201743/mmsi:258607000/imo:9665530/vessel:NORMAND_VISION

I've finally had a chance to read through the scoping report. Here's what I understand the plan to be:

A single AR3000 turbine will be deployed at MeyGen as a "first in class" demonstrator before the CFD-backed array is built. This is a sensible de-risking approach - no investor will fund twenty unproven turbines without seeing one work first. The scoping document doesn't provide a deployment timeline, but a Section 36C variation application is forthcoming.

The November investor presentation pushed CFD deployment back to 2031. I expect the AR3000 demonstrator to be deployed well before then (2027-28?) with the first two years focused on proving the device and gathering techno-economic and environmental data.

The Scottish Enterprise financing is welcome (well spotted Mehmet!), though it's unclear whether this grant is confirmed or conditional. It could be linked to renegotiation of the MeyGen debt, particularly given SE's recent appointment of a director to the MeyGen plc board. The document states the turbine will operate for 25 years, which raises questions about whether it will eventually join a CFD project - I'd thought mixing grants and CFDs was verboten, though demonstrator projects may have different treatment.

It would be good to get clarity from the company on this - we shouldn't need to piece together their plans from regulatory filings.

Thanks OT for the link - don’t know how I missed that. The screening request is also Interesting, though I suppose everyone apart from me has seen that already!

https://marine.gov.scot/sites/default/files/mey-fic1-2-rep-004-f-rev3_combined.pdf

Quick thoughts:

The AR3000 is described as “first in class” so I assume this won’t in fact be tested first in France. No timescale given for deployment that I can see. No CFDs till 2029 but I think that has since been pushed back to 2030? I agree with Mehmet this is a brand new turbine.

Will read properly later and post if I find anything interesting.

Re ops: agreed, 1-2 days on site but they also need to pay for mobilisation to Nigg, loading the turbine, steaming to Meygen, returning to Nigg and demobilisation back to the home port so 4-5 days minimum (or so ChatGPT tells me!)

Re AR3000: I hadn’t seen that news - was there an update I missed? I know they were planning to use this turbine for CFD projects. I think it would be crazy to deploy an array of these turbines before they’ve tested one offshore so if that’s now part of the plan then that’s good news.

I asked ChatGPT: about £80-100k a day, £400 thousand to £1 million for an operation, depending on duration.

Thanks OT well spotted!

Recovery certainly, not sure about deployment. I believe they have serviced a turbine on the boat at least once before and returned it to the water, but usually the device goes back to Nigg. The company mentioned a cable fault so perhaps that’s easier to fix than a turbine. Output suggests another device has gone offline since then but that could be an onshore problem.

Look at the size of that boat. Does anyone have an idea how much a boat like that costs to hire for each operation?

I’m hopeful that the Proteus device is one of the two still working, since Proteus are the preferred supplier to Phase 2 and this device has only been deployed for less than a year. However the fact AMP has stayed silent on this point makes me wonder.

That looks like an old photo OT because there’s snow in the background. It might be from the Proteus turbine redeployment last year.

690 MWh in October, down about 50% from January. Consistent with two turbines being out of operation.