Marine Current Turbines (MCT) has this week completed the installation of its 1.2MW SeaGen tidal energy system in Strangford Narrows in Northern Ireland.

The company has started a three-month commissioning and testing period and says it is on track to begin feeding energy to the grid later this summer.

It will also undertake a major £2m environmental impact assessment with scientists from Queens University in Belfast and St Andrews University which aims to monitor the effects of the system's twin turbines on local wildlife.

The company said that every effort had been taken to ensure the underwater turbines did not disrupt marine life, including the fitting of a sonar system to monitor the local seal population.

The SeaGen system is the world's first "commercial scale" tidal generator and will operate for up to 20 hours per day, providing enough power for up to 1,000 homes.

Martin Wright, managing director of MCT, said the installation was a " ground-breaking operation" that had attracted global media attention.

The project has led the way for a major tidal energy farm off the coast of North Wales. MCT is working with energy giant npower on the 10.5MW project, which it hopes to have operational by 2012.