Tidal power pioneer Atlantis outlines Covid-19 impact – including pay cuts

Sustainable energy specialist Simec Atlantis Energy has provided an update on how it is managing during the Covid-19 pandemic – including reducing the top team’s pay.

Australian-born CEO Tim Cornelius will take a 20 per cent salary deferral. Picture: Jon Savage.

The business, which has offices in Edinburgh’s Fountainbridge, said it has seen minimal disruption to the tidal business, with its flagship MeyGen project in the Pentland Firth continuing to export power reliably to the grid. “It remains our expectation that we will be able to maintain our current contractual commitments to deliver equipment and services to our clients in Japan and Scotland this year,” the firm added.

It added that the Green Highland Renewables business has 45 contracts with operating hydro schemes that require constant monitoring from its operations centre in Scotland. “A reduced team of engineers will be maintained to enable us to provide essential services to all of our customers and this will continue unaffected throughout this period.

“GHR has three hydro projects under construction, which have been temporarily shut down in line with current government policies.”

As for the Uskmouth Power Station conversion project, Atlantis said it is “reasonable to expect some delay” to its target financial close date, which had been set as the third quarter of 2020 for the project.

Management has also this week placed 27 employees on furlough, and more may follow suit. Additionally, to preserve liquidity, the chairman and all non-executive directors will take a 20 per cent cut in their fees and will defer payment of the remaining fees with immediate effect.

Chief executive Tim Cornelius and the executive team will take a 20 per cent salary deferral. Management is also implementing additional cost saving measures across the Aim-quoted business.