Marine Renewables Industry Association (MRIA), which represents Ireland’s tidal and wave energy sectors, has published a set of recommendations to address funding obstacles encountered by Irish pre-commercial wave and tidal developers.
The discussion paper ‘Funding the Development of the Ocean Energy Industry in Ireland’ specifies Ireland as a country that could benefit greatly from ocean energy developments in job and income terms, but in order to achieve that, a key obstacle of pre-commercial technology finance for the developers in medium stages of development must be overcome.
Some of the recommendations MRIA outlined in the paper include the establishment of SEAI-run Pre-Commercial Technology Fund (PCTF) to close the ‘funding gap’ for device and sub-system developers at TRL3+ and to complement the current Prototype Development Fund.
It also calls for the involvement of Enterprise Ireland, IDA and NTMA’s Strategic Investment Fund as partners in the PCTF, and for the development of a solution for financing needs at early commercial stage of ocean energy.
Furthermore, MRIA recommends the development of framework for co-operation and collaboration with Scotland to advance ocean energy without unnecessary duplication and to make best use of available resources, and suggests that ORESG should also initiate a debate on a National Ocean Energy Ambition (NOEA) for the period 2020-2030 to guide and to support Ireland’s drive to become a major global supplier to the ocean energy industry.
“Notable funding has been injected into the sector during a difficult time for the broader Irish economy. Major technical issues have been encountered and technology convergence has not occurred so far in wave – unlike tidal, where it is emerging.
“Even so, there is a pathway to technical solutions but it will need Government and international funding and it will probably take another 10-15 years before reliable ocean energy engineering solutions are able to generate electricity at scale and large-scale commercial development can begin,” it is stated in the paper.