An award-winning University of Strathclyde spin-out company has been awarded £1.4 million to help it harness tidal energy.

Nautricity will use the grant towards the total cost of building and testing its CoRMaT tidal current turbine in the sea south of Machrihanish, Argyll, Scotland.

The award was part of the £7.9 million WATERS 2 funding package announced by Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, aimed at helping Scottish firms to secure an increased share of the international marine energy market – which could be worth up to £4 billion to the country's economy by 2020.

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Cameron Johnstone, Chief Executive Officer of Nautricity, Cameron Johnstone, said: "We are delighted to be chosen as one of the companies to take a new generation of tidal energy technology forward.

"We were already well advanced with plans to deploy our CoRMaT technology – but this award helps significantly to accelerate this deployment.

"Nautricity welcomes the Deputy First Minister's announcement of the launch of the WATERS 2 programme, further demonstrating Scotland as the vanguard of next generation wave and tidal energy.

"This award accelerates Nautricity's business development by facilitating the commercial demonstration of its CoRMaT technology; thus providing a springboard for both domestic and international market development."

Ms Sturgeon said: "The WATERS 2 funding sends a further clear signal that Scotland – already blessed with some of the world’s greatest concentrations of marine energy resource and with unrivalled offshore energy engineering expertise – will continue to provide the optimum research and investment environment for developers and commercial partners."

(CD)