The Fast Tracked Product Development phase of the ProtoAtlantic project commenced last week (15th July 2019) at the LiR National Ocean Test Facility in Cork, Ireland, where Impact9 Energy and Marine Ltd., the first of 10 international companies selected under the programme, began testing their technology.
Impact9 Energy and Marine Ltd. are an Irish-based company founded by John Fitzgerald, and will be supported by ProtoAtlantic to test and validate their technology at two test facilities, LiR National Ocean Testing Facility, Cork, and INESC TEC, Porto.
As part of the Fast Tracked Product Development phase of ProtoAtlantic, Impact9 will be working with ProtoAtlantic across 3 work packages;
- 1. Submergence Concept Consultation, where INESC TEC experts will offer advice on aspects of control and automation;
- 2. Model Final Design / Procure / Build, where LiR will support Impact9 to design and build the physical model, and;
- 3. Model Calibration, Test Set-up, Tests and Reporting, where LiR will support the running of the tests with Impact9.
Impact9 intends to use the results of physical tests to strengthen its commercial feasibility study and to attract commercial co-funding for subsequent development. This would involve the design of a prototypical fish pen product for a sea or river deployment.
