MATERIALS THEFT DAMAGES HALES TURBINE PROJECT

A theft of a large amount of stainless steel materials which included the three 1MX1M turbine prototype units have been stolen from a secure storage area.
    The loss of these three prototypes , which had been programmed into a exciting coastal deployment Project in 2018 is a great loss. These units would have been used to confirm the best ways to deploy/maintain/ and recover these Tidal Stream Turbines in very turbulent coastal waters, once the D/M/R  systems have been confirmed then new 316 marine grade turbine units would have been manufacture and deployed.
The business partners in this project have requested costings to replace the stolen units with 2 units in 316 stainless and rework the project program.

 

Local Police investigating have made an arrest, but believe the materials have been sold as scrap metal items at a fraction of their value, which has been valued at above £100,000, due to the detailed research work over the  past 8 years in collaboration with Kingston University and the costly special test tank build and testing in Hastings.

The loss of the prototypes and future project planning will be discussed in a meeting called for by the site developers in January 2018.