OERA and Innovate UK to fund tidal development projects

The Offshore Energy Research Association (OERA) and Innovate UK (the new name for the Technology Strategy Board) are jointly investing approximately CAD 1.4 million (approximately GBP 755,000) in collaborative R&D projects to develop enhanced sensing technologies for tidal in-stream energy applications.

As stated on OERA’s official website, the objective is to develop the technologies that will lead to the acquisition of better data, improved data analysis, and collection methods that facilitate in the reduction of risk, uncertainty and cost to the tidal in-stream energy industry.

OERA and Innovate UK are seeking proposals from business-led collaborations in the area of environmental monitoring, sensing and instrumentation technologies suited to high flow/harsh in-stream tidal energy environments. The proposals must include at least one business from Canada and one from the United Kingdom. Research organizations are eligible to partner in a project consortium.

The funding is intended for industrial research projects, in which a small and medium sized enterprise business partner will generally attract up to 60%, and large enterprises 50%, of the total project costs through funding from OERA and Innovate UK. The total project costs are expected to be in the region of CAD 500,000 (approximately GBP 275,000), although the projects of other size will not be excluded.

The deadline for the submission of expressions of interest is November 28, 2014. Since this is a two-stage competition, the shortlisted applicants will be contacted and invited to submit a full proposal.

The shortlist will be announced after the evaluation, in mid-January 2015.

Tidal Energy Today Staff; Source: OERA; Image: OERA