International Co-operation

In 2016 OES collaborated with the Bali Clean Energy Forum co-hosted by IEA and Indonesian Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources. It was a two-day event showcases opportunities to accelerate clean energy deployment and enhance energy efficiency around the globe. Organised on the 11th February, it was attended by more than 1000 leaders from government, industry, research and development organizations. Under the theme “Bridging the Gap and Promoting Global Partnership”, the Bali Forum aimed to explore how international partnerships can help countries in all stages of development share knowledge, technology and best practices to scale up clean energy deployment. 

The Chairman of the OES moderated a session on ocean energy with 6 speakers addressing the following topics: Ocean Energy in Indonesia, Ocean Energy for Island Electrification, Ocean Current Technology and Barrage Utilization of Hydro Power in Indonesia, the South East Asian Marine Energy Centre and tidal energy development, lessons learnt from French experience and Indonesian perspectives.

OES usually interacts with the IEA through contributions to various IEA reports, the IEA OPEN Bulletin and trough participation in IEA meetings.

In 2016 OES participated in the following meetings:

• IEA Workshop “Maximising the impact of IEA’s Technology Collaboration Programmes through enhanced cooperation in the Energy Technology Network”, Paris, 18 February 2016.
   
• Sixty-Ninth Meeting of the Working Party on Renewable Energy Technologies, Paris, 15 - 16 March 2016.
   
• Seventeenth Meeting of the Working Party on Renewable Energy Technologies, Beijing, China, 17-18 October 2016.
   

In 2016 the OES reviewed the ‘Tracking Clean Energy Progress´’ (TCEP 2016).

This report highlights the development and deployment of key clean energy technologies year on year.

TCEP 2016 – prepared for the Clean Energy Ministerial meeting where 23 member countries collaborate on solutions to advance clean energy globally  –  is an integral part of the specific recommendations to governments on how to scale up deployment of these key technologies to ensure a secure, clean and competitive energy future.

Collaboration with OECD

The OES collaborated with the OECD project “The Future of the Ocean Economy: Exploring the prospects for emerging ocean industries to 2030”. The Report was formally launched in 2016 at a 2-day event in Seoul, attended by an international audience of ca. 50 people. 

OES contributed with a Discussion Paper, prepared by Eoin Sweeney, on the status of ocean energy which was published in 2016 at the OES website.

Objective and main findings of the OECD Report:
This project explored the growth prospects for the ocean economy, and its capacity for employment creation and innovation. Particular attention is devoted to the emerging ocean-based industries in light of their particularly high potential for growth, innovation and contribution to addressing global challenges such as energy security, environment, climate change and food security. Hence the present report examines the risks and uncertainties surrounding the future development of ocean industries, the innovations required in science and technology to support their progress, the environmental impacts of the industries, their potential contribution to green growth as well as their negative externalities, and some of the implications for planning and regulation. Finally, and looking across the future ocean economy as a whole, it explores possible avenues for action that could boost its long-term development prospects while managing the use of the ocean itself in responsible, sustainable ways.  

Given that Ocean Energy is still an emerging industry and that projections for output and employment are, necessarily, tentative at this stage, there is little substantially new about OE in the Report, a summary of which can be found at http://wp.me/p2v6oD-2tO.

However, the Report states that “the ocean will play a key role in the transition to a more sustainable global energy system. While current global offshore wind installed capacity is in excess of 7 gigawatts (GW), projections suggest there may be potential for 40-60 GW by 2020 and growth of a further order of magnitude by 2050. And while ocean power (wave, tidal, thermal conversion, salinity gradient technology) is not yet mature or operating at commercial scale, its longer term potential is considerable. Both offshore wind and ocean-based energy are expected to gain considerably from future investment in the wake of the Paris COP21 agreement.”

More information about the OECD study: http://www.oecd.org/futures/oceaneconomy.htm
 

Collaboration with INORE

INORE is a network for postgraduate researchers working with issues related to offshore renewable energy. The OES encourages this network and provides annual financial sponsorship for specific activities conducted by INORE, particularly to develop membership in new regions, including Asia and the Pacific. One example of supporting international collaboration work is the “International Collaborative Incentive Scholarships” (ICIS scheme), whereby pairs or groups of researchers from at least two different countries are awarded a small bursary to fund (usually travel) expenses that will allow a piece of work to be carried out at one of the group member’s organisations. 

More on INORE: https://inore.org/

EERA Ocean Energy Joint Programme and OCEANARA-NET 

In 2016, OES organised a join workshop on “Stage Gate Metrics for Ocean Energy Technology Development” with two European initiates, the EERA Ocean Energy Joint Programme and the OCEANERA-NET. The workshop was attended by key stakeholders within the ocean energy industry and was held in Edinburgh on September 16th 2016.

The outputs of this workshop are intended to provide a step-forward in the common understanding and approach to success measurement in ocean energy technology and to progress the baseline for future discussions. The workshop also forms a valuable input to the on-going international collaboration on the development of ocean energy technology and the management of the various stage-gated technology development programmes run by funders around the world.

Follow-up workshops will be required to help the ocean energy sectors maintain a common approach as well as provide a forum for individual funders and technology development programme managers to share their experience of specific metrics and success thresholds appropriate to their technologies and markets.

European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) Ocean Energy Joint Programme:

The EERA Ocean energy programme aims to contribute to strategic leadership of the underpinning research, joint prioritization of research tasks and infrastructure, alignment of European and national research efforts, coordination with industry and sharing of knowledge and research infrastructure.

Ocean Energy European Research Area Network (OCEANERA-NET):

OCEANERA-NET aims to coordinate and support research, innovation and knowledge exchange in the Ocean Energy sector amongst European countries and regions, by launching transnational competitive joint calls for funding collaborative R&D. It is funded by the European Union bringing together 15 European research funding organisations from 8 EU countries.

OCEAN ENERGY FORUM

The Ocean Energy Forum was launched by the European Commission in 2014 which brings together stakeholders to develop a shared understanding of the problems and to develop solutions.

The Ocean Energy Forum was formed of 3 work streams for Environment & Consenting, Finance and Technology. These three work streams allowed consensus building to take place at a topic-specific level thus enabling pragmatic solutions to issues to be developed.

The OES was part of the Steering Group on Environment & Consenting.

More information at:
https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/maritimeforum

Ocean Energy Forum
The main output is the Strategic Roadmap, published in November 2016, proposing 6 actions to facilitate the emergence of a market for ocean energy in Europe:

• To create an EU-wide phase-gate approach for technology development
   
• Identify the most suitable sites for early deployments and support pre-commercial farms there
   
• Create a packaged approach for financing farms
   
• Create an EU insurance fund to underwrite project risks
   
• Increase collaboration to reduce costs and plan deployments
   
• Create an integrated consenting programme

MARIBE ADVISORY SESSIONS

MARIBE is 18-month project that was funded by the European Commission aiming to unlock the potential of multi-use of space in the offshore economy.

Having explored the opportunities that exist for cooperation between different Blue Growth and Blue Economy sectors, the consortium worked with companies from these marine sectors to develop 9 multi-use of space or multi-use platform projects. The consortium’s expertise was utilised to assist companies with their business and financial models. OES was invited to attend the advisory session events.

More information at: https://maribe.eu

MARIBE objectives:

• Identify opportunities for Blue Growth sectors to cooperate with other sectors via multi-use of space or in multi-use platforms and assist in the development of the most promising project combinations.
   
• Provide information on the socio-economic context and the key technical and non-technical challenges facing these projects based in part on lifecycle learning.
   
• Use the consortium’s diverse network to introduce project stakeholders to key advisors and potential investors.