The European Ocean Energy Association (EU-OEA) last week (15
July) published a 2050 roadmap for ocean energy, highlighting the
major potential of energy produced from the flow of waves and tides
or the thermal and salinity gradients of oceans and seas.
The report estimated that installed ocean energy could reach 3.6
GW by 2030 and leap to nearly 188 GW by mid-century. In 2050, a
world-leading ocean energy industry in Europe could prevent 136.3
million tonnes of CO2 per year from being emitted into the
atmosphere and create 470,000 new green jobs, it argued.
However, ocean energy is still in its infancy and technologies
to capture it are currently being demonstrated in different
countries. The largest resources in the EU are wave, tidal current
and tidal range, and technologies to harvest them are thus the most
advanced, the EU-OEA said.
"If 0.1% of the renewable energy
available within the oceans could
be converted into electricity it would satisfy the present world
demand for energy more than five times over." UK Marine Foresight
Panel, 2000
Developers can access development zones with testing facilities,
grid infrastructure and licensing rounds in Ireland, Norway,
Denmark, the UK, Portugal, Finland, Spain, France and Italy, it
said.
Only a handful of modern commercial projects are generating
ocean power today, while numerous others are in development,
according to the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st
Century (REN21). It estimated that some 6MW is operational or being
tested in European waters, with the UK in the lead. The country has
the world's first commercial-scale tidal turbine, which feeds
electricity into the grid to satisfy the needs of around 1,000
British homes.
The industry currently faces a number of expensive challenges.
It will have to demonstrate the operational capabilities of a new
generation of full-scale ocean energy conversion devices and
install them within the next few years while developing automated
manufacturing processes, the report outlined.
It also pointed to the need for electricity network connections
to enable large-scale ocean energy power to be delivered to the
grid, and stressed the importance of cooperating with other
industries, particularly offshore wind, oil and gas.
To speed up the development of the clean energy source, the
report calls for the development of a European Industrial
Initiative for ocean energy under the EU's Strategic Energy Technology
(SET) Plan. This would help create the critical mass of
public-private partnerships needed to commercialise the
technologies, it argued.
"A number of large-scale utilities, energy agencies and
industrial players […] have already made significant investments in
the sector," said Nathalie Rousseau, executive director of EU-OEA.
"The successful growth of the ocean energy industry now depends on
swift and targeted policy actions and EU support to overcome a
number of known technological and market challenges".
Download your copy of the road map
now!