Morlais Development Zone
The Morlais Development Zone is a Visionary Tidal-Stream Energy Project
Located off the coast of Holy Island, Anglesey in Wales, UK.
It has the potential to generate up to 240 MW of electricity.
- Morlais is being developed by Menter Mon, a social enterprise in north Wales, in partnership with the Welsh government, commercial entities and other third parties.
- The project aims to benefit local communities, the economy and help tackle climate change by using renewable energy to generate clean low carbon electricity.
Menter Mon will provide the infrastructure for developers of tidal energy devices, including Verdant Power, to deploy the devices on a commercial scale and connect to a UK electricity transmission and distribution company
- The project is being developed in stages. The first stage was completed with the Welsh Government and Natural Resource Wales awarding consent for the project in December 2021.
- The second stage is underway and includes construction of onshore infrastructure to prepare for deployment of tidal-stream energy devices by their developers in the zone.
- The third stage will be deployment of tidal energy devices by developers, each with their own designated berth.
- Tidal devices will be installed in phases with ongoing monitoring to reduce project development risks and ensure the tidal device deployment does not have negative impact on the environment.
Verdant Power, Inc., operating as Verdant Isles Ltd in partnership with Belleville Duggan Renewables, was awarded a berth following a competitive award process
- The Morlais project is a significant opportunity for commercial deployment of its tidal energy technology.
- Verdant tidal energy devices will be deployed in stages beginning with a 5 megawatt project.
- Early-stage resource assessment and front-end-engineering and design for the proposed turbines are ongoing.