Construction of the FITS power plant making great strides

Construction of the FITS power plant making great strides

Achelous Energy is reaching the final stages of fabrication for its hydrokinetic river Floating Instream Tidal and Solar (FITS) power plant. With a power production of 200kW, it will rank as one of the largest hydrokinetic demonstrator projects to be deployed on a river in Southeast Asia.

Scheduled for completion in late 2021, the FITS power plant will be tested and commissioned on the Hlaing river in Yangon, Myanmar. Fabrication and assembly of the FITS demonstrator is being undertaken by Royal Marine Engineering, project partner in a consortium led by Achelous Energy, which is executing the Innovate UK grant funded project.

The fabrication project team has faced numerous obstacles since striking steel, including multiple COVID-19 lockdowns and a military coup. Nevertheless, the team has remained positive throughout and now, with further mobilisation of workers on site, the finish line is clearly in sight. The whole power plant will be assembled, with the turbines integrated into position and overall fit-out being completed by the end of November 2021. The unit will then be towed out to the Hlaing river for testing.

Once in the river, the FITS power plant will undergo a rigorous commissioning and testing program to verify and validate the system performance against design prediction and scale model test data.

Figure 1-1: Internal welding carrying out (Looking Stbd Side)
Figure 1-2: Final shell plate installed on port side