Atlantis Resources Corporation

Atlantis has the ability to exploit Scotland's resources

The Pentland Firth, which separates the Orkney Islands from the Scottish mainland, offers one of the best tidal current resources in the world, with 40 percent of the UK’s tidal power and 25 percent of Europe’s. Atlantis, with its industry leading tidal turbine technology has the ability to exploit this resource.

Atlantis Resources Corporation, one of the world’s leading marine renewable energy developers, is working for Statkraft, Europe’s largest generator of renewable energy, in connection with Statkraft’s plans to develop and implement a major tidal power project in the Pentland Firth.

The Sustainable Development Commission estimates the UK’s tidal resources could provide at least 10 percent of the country’s overall electricity needs. However, the majority of this resource resides at the opposite end of the country to most power usage, whilst the National Grid does not currently have sufficient capacity to transfer it.

In response to this challenge, Atlantis is pursuing the construction of an enterprise-scale data centre on the shores of the Pentland Firth.

The data centre would initially draw 30 MW from the Grid and would then be supplied by the tidal current turbines when they are deployed. The electrical energy would be transmitted to the data centre via a private cable allowing Atlantis to neatly sidestep the ‘Great Britain queue’ of renewable energy projects awaiting grid connection.

The tidal current turbines are expected to deliver approximately 30 percent of the data centre’s overall energy requirement. Over time the data centre could be expanded to use 150 MW or more of tidal power if commercially viable batteries were to be incorporated.

Once operational, the use of marine renewable power will significantly reduce the level of carbon emissions attributable to the data centre.

As well as being powered by renewable energy, the data centre will be at the cutting edge in terms of its design and efficiency.

One advantage is its location in Northern Scotland. One of the largest operational costs for a data centre is the power required for cooling as the servers housed inside the data centre dissipate significant amounts of heat.

The average temperature in Northern Scotland is around 7°C allowing the data centre to be cooled primarily with outside air (free air cooling). This reduces the energy required to run the data centre and makes it more financially attractive to customers.

Atlantis is cooperating with other Scottish data centre projects to highlight Scotland as a practical and economic location.

Even during the recent financial market turbulence, Atlantis has continued to be successful in raising funds. Following Atlantis’ acquisition of Current Resources Ltd – Morgan Stanley’s tidal project origination business – in an all-share deal, Atlantis raised a further $14 million in new equity from Statkraft, as a new investor, Morgan Stanley and other shareholders following in on their prior investments.

Local government groups are supportive of Atlantis’ plans in the region, especially as up to 700 new jobs could be created over the next decade in association with the installation, operation and maintenance of the tidal current turbines.

These skilled jobs are needed in the area as employment is set to steadily decline at the nearby Dounreay nuclear facility, which is currently being decommissioned. The data centre project, in facilitating grid-connection earlier than is otherwise possible, allows those tidal-related jobs to be created as jobs are lost at Dounreay, avoiding a multi-year period of high unemployment in the region.