Company

The TidalStream Partnership was founded in 2005 by Dr John Armstrong and Michael Todman, who brought extensive experience from the wind, marine, and power industries to the challenge of tidal generation.

John Armstrong was Technical Director and subsequently Managing Director of the Wind Energy Group, Taylor Woodrow’s subsidiary that pioneered the UK development of wind turbine technology in the 80’s and early 90’s. He managed several of the large DTI and EU turbine development programmes as well as building wind farms in the UK and California. He also has a background in sub-sea engineering having worked with Lockheed Petroleum Systems in the mid 1970’s.

Michael Todman was Chief Engineer at Rolls-Royce Industrial & Marine power, involved in both marine propulsion turbines and power generation systems from concept designs to in-service support. He subsequently spent over three years as CTO at Pursuit Dynamics plc – a technology innovation company where he developed novel propulsion and processing systems. He has been instrumental in setting up two R&D facilities, one for Rolls-Royce in Canada, and one for Pursuit Dynamics plc in Hertfordshire, UK.

The technology has been built on the pioneering work started by John Armstrong and patented in 2003. Early development was carried out through a consortium of organisations with support from the UK government (BERR/DECC),and has subsequently been built on through tank testing, modelling and the present series of tests in the Thames.

TidalStream has now been incorporated into a limited company to take the development process on towards full commercialisation. Shareholders have been gained and the Board strengthened.

Company