June 2014: The Strategic Initiative for Ocean Energy (SI Ocean), as part of its Market Deployment Strategy, released a report detailing the barriers to widespread wave and tidal energy deployment in Europe and offering recommendations for addressing those barriers.

After presenting a vision of Europe reaching 100 gigawatts (GW) of installed wave and tidal energy capacity by 2050, the report’s subsequent chapters focus on finance, technology development, regulatory regimes and the grid. Each chapter identifies the challenges these risk areas present, offers goals to remove barriers and recommends way to meet those goals.

In the area of finance, the report finds there is a shortfall of upfront capital investment for development and demonstration, and lack of clarity on long-term revenue support. The report states that increased volume of research and development (R&D) capital is necessary, but that coordination among stakeholders seeking funding and collaborative learning are also important. Capital support is also part of the solution to the technology risk, which is derived from the particularly harsh conditions of an ocean environment, giving rise to uncertainties about survivability, reliability and cost reduction potential.

Receiving regulatory consent to develop projects is another area of risk; according to the report, the unknown interactions between the technologies and the offshore environment make it difficult for regulators to assess and mitigate potential impacts. The report recommends, among other things, sharing and disseminating experiences to ensure that the knowledge gained by those governments already experimenting in this area expedites the process in other countries.

As detailed in the report, grid-related risk refers to the fact that ocean energy systems are often located far from grid infrastructure. To help de-risk the grid challenges, the report suggests that regulators incorporate wave and tidal energy projects into long-term grid development plans.

The report was supported by the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme of the EU. The SI Ocean project consortium includes Ocean Energy Europe (Belgium); the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC); RenewableUK; the Carbon Trust; the University of Edinburgh (UK); WavEC (Portugal); and DHI (Denmark). [OES Publication Webpage] [Publication: Wave and Tidal Energy Market Deployment Strategy for Europe]