€12.8m to demonstrate ocean energy farms
A new project has been launched which provides $12.8m funding to developers of marine renewable technologies to test their products or services in real sea environments.
The new Interreg NWE project Ocean DEMO specifically targets multi-machine ocean energy installations. This will allow developers to move closer to market by demonstrating their technologies at full commercial scale. The project will release a first call for applications this year and devices will be installed from 2020 to 2022.
Oliver Wragg, commercial director at European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), project leader and one of the open sea test centres, said: “With Ocean DEMO, we will be able to scale up technologies to pilot farm scale. This will reduce technical risks, minimise environmental impacts and improve the economic competitiveness of ocean energy production. We’re looking forward to collaborating with ocean energy innovators across Europe and help them get machines in the water.”
Pilot farm progress
Ocean DEMO aims to ease the transition towards pilot farms by providing free access to Europe’s world leading network of open sea test centres. In addition to EMEC, other centres include DMEC – Dutch Marine Energy Centre, Netherlands; Centrale Nantes/SEM-REV – Site d’Expérimentation en Mer pour la Récupération de l’Énergie des Vagues, France; and SmartBay – Ireland.
Ocean Energy Europe will channel the project’s achievements and learnings to its international network of ocean energy professionals, ensuring broad dissemination across the sector.
Ocean DEMO follows on from the FORESEA project, which provides free access to open sea test centres for single machine testing.
By Rebecca Jeffrey
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