Futuristic designs of Orbital Marine Power’s striking tidal stream turbine technology, which were developed through a strategic design partnership with Designworks, the innovation studio for the BMW Group and global creative consultancy, have been selected for recognition in the prestigious iF Design Awards announced today.

Run by one of the oldest truly independent design institutions in the world, the iF Design Awards are a global symbol of design excellence, aimed at identifying, supporting and promoting good design, in particular well-designed industrial products.

The Awards, which received almost 10,000 submissions from 60 countries in 2020, identified the collaborative work of Orbital and Designworks as a winning design within the Professional Concept category.

Orbital and Designworks announced their design partnership last year when they released concept images of Orbital’s floating energy generation technology, with the utility scale Orbital OA model and a smaller Riverkinetic model included in the line-up. The vision for the OA model sees turbines becoming less like traditional vessels, and more akin to autonomous power generation fleets in the future.

As a recognised technology leader in its sector, Orbital recently launched its first commercial O2 tidal turbine which is starting grid connected operation in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland. The O2 is the most powerful tidal stream turbine in the world, resembles a spaceship in appearance, at 74m in length is approximately the size of a Boeing 747, and with a generation capacity of 2MW the single unit can supply around 2,000 UK homes with clean, predictable energy.

World renowned design innovation company BMW Group Designworks has studios in Munich, Los Angeles and Shanghai.  For 25 years its strategic design has stimulated the BMW Group as well as a select group of partner companies, helping to keep them at the forefront of their industries.

Andrew Scott, CEO Orbital:

“As a pioneering energy company setting out to help turn the tide on climate change, creating a future vision, and excitement around that, is hugely important to us, which was why we engaged Designworks in a collaborative partnership. To have the outputs from that exercise recognised in the iF Design forum is a genuine honour.”

Laura Robin, Studio Director, Designworks, LA Studio:

“Sharing the honour of this iF Design Award 2021 with Orbital Marine Power is a great achievement.  This global recognition acknowledges design’s importance in envisioning our best future. And what better design opportunity than to partner with a company that tangibly demonstrates new forms of clean energy — producing meaningful change for people and planet.”