Tidal Energy has secured £6.4m from the Welsh Government for the development of a 1.2MW DeltaStream device to be deployed next year.

The company has now received a total loan of £11m, while the remaining balance is being provided by majority shareholder Eco2 to manufacture and deploy the device, which was invented by the engineer Richard Ayre.

Cranfield University, which has worked in collaboration with Tidal Energy over the last three years, will continue to provide specialist design services and monitor the performance of the device.

The device sits on the sea bed without the need for a positive anchoring system and generates electricity from three separate horizontal axis turbines mounted on a common frame.