A TIDAL energy company that has trialled its technology off Orkney is launching a fundraising round that will help it bring its generator to market within the next few years.

Scotrenewables Tidal Power, whose prototype floating generator produced around seven per cent of the energy needed on the Orkney islands over a continuous seven-day period in August, has appointed energy specialist Simmons & Company International to help it raise a multi-million pound sum from new and existing investors.

Scotrenewables business development manager James Murray said that the company hopes to raise the money it needs to commercialise its technology over the course of 2018, adding that it would take three or four years for the company to achieve its first commercial sales.

“At the moment we have a two megawatt prototype being tested in the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney,” Mr Murray said.

“We’ve been taking all the learning from that and under a European-funded project we’ve been going through the detailed design of a production model.

“We’ll start production of that next year and it will be launched in Orkney towards the back end of next year and start of 2019.

“We’ve had some grant funding towards that but the investment will fund the remainder of the requirements for the build and testing of that production model and also its delivery.”

Mr Murray said it was too early to say exactly how much money the business will need to raise but added that it would be “in the millions”.

Scotrenewables has already received financial backing from Scottish Enterprise and the European Commission and its existing shareholders include Swiss investor ABB Technology Ventures, Norwegian shipping company Fred Olsen, French oil major Total and Irish renewables business DP Energy.

The shareholders collectively put £7.6 million into Scotrenewables in 2012.