Ocean Energy Systems releases 2016 annual report

The Ocean Energy Systems (OES) has published its annual report with an assessment of the current state of the ocean energy industry.

The report, released today, April 11, 2017, looks at the progress made by each of the 25 OES members.

Since last year’s report, new members, including France, India and the European Commission, have joined OES.

Each new member will contribute to the current work of OES in the areas of wave energy, tidal energy, ocean currents, ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) and salinity gradients.

Alongside OES’ International Vision for Ocean Energy report, launched earlier this year, the OES 2016 Annual Report highlights examples where exchange of ideas between industries and nations has led to benefits in the development, installation, operation and maintenance of prototypes, as well as on services and streamlining procedures.

The new annual report also presents in-depth interviews with five key players in the open sea testing of ocean energy technologies from the USA, Canada, UK, Spain and Japan.

Commenting on the current position of the sector, Samantha Quinn of the USA’s Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC), said: “By building more facilities, giving more opportunities for developers around the world to test in a variety of sea-states, the industry will see more improvement and the potential for a commercial industry sooner than projected.”

Oliver Wragg, Commercial Director of the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), said: “Only by proving performance in a real sea environment can developers truly progress to commercial projects. Verified performance data from open-water testing will continue to build confidence amongst the investment community and help developers bring their concepts to a global clean energy market.”

José Luis Villate, OES Chairman for the past 4 years, said: “2016 will probably be seen as a take-off year for ocean energy: while several devices were being deployed, some governments set up firm policies to support ocean energy.”

Incoming OES Chairman, Henry Jeffrey of the University of Edinburgh, a long-time advocate of knowledge sharing, said: “Our 2050 goal of 300GW of installed capacity, saving over 500 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, will only be achieved through extensive sharing of knowledge and experience to accelerate the development of the ocean energy sector.”

OES, also known as the Technology Collaboration Program on Ocean Energy Systems is an intergovernmental collaboration between countries, operating under a framework established by the International Energy Agency in Paris.

Its aim is to advance research, development and demonstration of conversion technologies to harness energy from all forms of ocean renewable resources.