OPENHYDRO GROUP LIMITED

Their core work

OpenHydro is an Irish tidal energy company that designs, manufactures, and deploys open-centre tidal stream turbines — large seabed-mounted devices that extract power from tidal currents without a central shaft. Their H2020 work focused on advancing the industrial readiness of their turbine technology (OCTTIC) and scaling it up to multi-device pilot arrays in real marine environments, including the Normandy coast of France (OCTARRAY). They are a rare example of a company that moved tidal energy from prototype to pre-commercial array deployment within the H2020 programme period. Their contribution to consortia is typically as a technology owner and hardware provider rather than a research entity.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

OpenHydro's H2020 participation covers only a short window (2016-2020), but shows a clear progression from industrial readiness to real-world deployment. Their first project, OCTTIC, addressed the internal challenge of manufacturing capability — getting the turbine production-ready. Their second project, OCTARRAY, shifted the challenge outward: proving that multiple devices could be deployed and operated together as a revenue-generating array. This mirrors the classic scale-up trajectory in ocean energy: technology validation → manufacturing scale-up → pilot array → commercial project. The company did not live to see a commercial phase; OpenHydro entered liquidation around 2019.

OpenHydro was on a trajectory toward commercial tidal array deployment, but the company went into liquidation in 2019; any future collaboration would need to engage the intellectual property and asset acquirers rather than this legal entity.

How they like to work

OpenHydro never led an H2020 project as coordinator — they joined consortia as the technology provider, contributing their turbine hardware and operational know-how while others handled coordination and research tasks. Their role as a third party in OCTARRAY suggests they were the enabling industrial partner whose technology the project was built around, without holding primary contractual responsibility. This pattern is typical of deep-tech SMEs that bring a proprietary hardware asset to a consortium rather than project management capacity.

OpenHydro collaborated with 8 unique partners across 6 countries within just two projects, reflecting the international nature of ocean energy consortia that typically span Ireland, France, the UK, and Nordic countries. Their most significant partnership was with French industrial actors on the Normandy tidal array, suggesting strong ties to the Franco-Irish marine energy corridor.

What sets them apart

OpenHydro was one of very few companies globally to have actually deployed a full-scale open-centre tidal turbine on the seabed and progressed to pilot array testing — making them a practitioner, not a researcher. For a consortium needing a tidal technology demonstrator or industry anchor, they were the only Irish company capable of filling that role. However, given the company's liquidation circa 2019, any engagement with this entity's legacy (IP, data, team alumni) requires due diligence on asset ownership post-insolvency.

Highlights from their portfolio

• OCTTIC
  With €2.16M in EC funding, this Innovation Action was the financial backbone of OpenHydro's H2020 engagement, targeting the rarely-funded challenge of manufacturing scale-up for a first-of-kind ocean energy device.
• OCTARRAY
  One of the few H2020 projects to attempt real-sea deployment of a multi-turbine tidal array, this project represents the furthest point tidal stream technology reached under the H2020 programme before commercial collapse.