NeSSIE champs invite renewables lot to the loch

Three offshore renewable project developers, selected in the first stage of the NeSSIE project, have launched a call for supply chain companies interested in joining the demonstration projects in North Sea Basin related to developing commercial solutions for corrosion.

The chosen stage one developers for the NeSSIE project, whose main goal is to develop commercial corrosion solutions for emerging industries such as tidal and wave, and more established ones like offshore wind, are SIMEC Atlantis Energy, SSE and the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC).

Marking the launch of the project’s second stage, the winners of the first call have invited innovative supply chain companies to put forward commercial proposals for their projects.

Namely, EMEC is looking for solutions for marine energy converters, subsystems and connectors, particularly in the wave energy sector, while SIMEC Atlantis seeks a number of solutions around operational tidal turbines.

Interested parties have also been challenged with finding solutions to corrosion management and remediation for offshore wind turbines, put forward by SSE.

The supply chain companies, which enter stage two of the project, will meet the three project developers at the forthcoming European corrosion conference in Glasgow early in 2019.

Once stage two is complete, the NeSSIE project partners will work with the project developers to develop business cases for each demonstration project and will help to identify potential funding packages to deliver them.

As the race to decarbonize the energy system and tackle the energy trilemma of security, affordability and environmental sustainability continues, the NeSSIE competition, which is backed by the European Commission, is designed to help the offshore renewables industry in the EU tackle corrosion issues to support these goals.

Aside from that, the project aims to lower the cost of low carbon electricity, and create up to €84,000 million of supply chain opportunities across Europe by 2050.

“Now that the world’s first commercial scale, multi-turbine tidal array, our MeyGen project, has moved into the operational phase , we look to the future; specifically to the roll out of large commercial tidal energy schemes in Scotland and overseas.

“These cost competitive, commercial projects can only be realised if we continue to innovate and look for optimal solutions across the tidal array system including addressing and mitigating the effects of corrosion.

“Through the support provided by the NeSSIE project, working together with our supply chain to demonstrate future solutions, we can accelerate this process.

“This is one of the many important cost reduction exercises which we are implementing to realise the cost reduction pathway identified in a recent report by the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult,” Cameron Smith, Director of Business Development and Public Affairs at SIMEC Atlantis Energy, said.

Matthew Finn, Senior Business Development Manager at EMEC, added: “Wave and tidal energy technologies operate in extreme marine environments with high loadings and limited access for operation and maintenance. They are also subjected to much higher oxygen levels in these turbulent seas, so corrosion poses significant long-term challenges for technology developers.”

The project, co-funded by the EMFF program of the European Union, and involving 8 partners from 5 countries, started in May 2017 and will finish in April 2019.

By the end 2018 – NeSSIE (North Sea Solutions for Innovation in Corrosion for Energy) project will finalize the second and third step of the competition. By February 2019, the project partners said they intend to deliver an investment plan for the three demonstration cases.