Weighing 1000 tonnes, with a width of 43 metres from tip to tip and resembling an underwater upturned windmill its makers claim it represents a clean green alternative to climate-destroying fossil fuels.
As SeaGen - the world's first and largest commercial scale tidal stream energy generator - was laid down in Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland, yesterday the company behind it claimed this form of tidal power has the potential to supply up to 10% of the UK's energy within a decade.
If successful, the system, which harnesses the power of aggressive tidal currents, could be replicated across not only Britain but other parts of the world, according to its manufacturers, Marine Current Turbines.
In brilliant spring sunshine, with the Mountains of Mournes visible in the distance across the lough, the company's managing director Martin Wright said the underwater generator would be powering up to 1,000 homes in Northern Ireland over the next few months.
"Once our Strangford project is up and running our next step would be to build a farm of these turbines off the coast of Anglesey. Then we will roll out a series of farms all over Britain.
"The main problems we will face once it's been proved the technology works is to find locations with aggressive tides that can be linked into the national grid; that there is the political will to use this form of clean, green energy and that we can get over local objections.
"When that happens this system can be used all over the planet in places which have similar aggressive tides in countries as far as apart as Canada and Indonesia. It's not just going to help reduce the UK's carbon emissions, the system can be deployed all over the world," Wright said.
Seagen works by using two rotating blades that turn at 14 revolutions per minute and are driven by a gear box system. Designed by engineer Peter Franklin, the rotars drive a generator that sends energy along a cable that then links into the national grid across the lough in Strangford village.
Local conservationist David Irwin yesterday described Strangford Lough as 'one of the most important areas of marine life in Europe if not the world'. Irwin, who has been tasked to head up an environmental monitoring unit overseeing the project, said his team would spend five years studying SeaGen to see if it was 'environmentally benign'.
"I am convinced this technology is going to work but what we don't know is what impact it will have on the lough's environment.'
Two and a half million pounds is in place to closely scrutinise Seagen's impact on marine life in Strangford Lough.
Built at Belfast's Harland and Wolff's shipyards, the birthplace of the Titanic, SeaGen will take 14 days to install with the system literally being bolted onto the lough's bed. The process takes so long because, ironically, the team putting it into place have to overcome the very tides they are hoping to harvest and produce energy for the national grid.