SafeWAVE approaches finish line, soon to unveil its wave energy outcomes

The EU-backed SafeWAVE project, short for Streamlining the Assessment of Environmental Effects of Wave Energy, will celebrate its completion on November 28, 2024. 

According to SafeWAVE, an online event will showcase the project’s contributions to improving consenting and licensing processes and tackling non-technical barriers hindering wave energy growth in the EU.

Over its three-year duration, SafeWAVE said that it had pushed forward the understanding of the environmental impacts of wave energy platforms, introducing innovative data-sharing practices, decision support tools for maritime spatial planning (MSP), and a more streamlined environmental consenting framework. 

The project has also developed an education and public engagement (EPE) framework to support wave energy’s alignment with the EU’s Blue Growth strategy.

According to SafeWAVE, the event will feature presentations from project partners detailing these key outcomes. Participants will gain insights into environmental impacts, public engagement initiatives, and improved consenting and planning strategies.

“We are pleased to present the outcomes of the SAFEWAVE project, which has contributed to advancing the future of wave energy by improving environmental assessment methods and developing strategies for greater community engagement that now need to be implemented,” said Juan Bald, Head of Marine and Coastal Environmental Management at Azti, coordinator of the project. 

“This event will provide valuable insights into the next steps for wave energy development in Europe.”

Supported by ETIP Ocean, short for the European Technology and Innovation Platform for Ocean Energy, the event is said to provide research insights on wave energy’s environmental impact, optimized consenting processes, and strategies for boosting community support.

Led by AZTI, the project consortium includes technology developers (BiMEP, Wello, CorPower Ocean, and GEPS Techno), consultants, researchers (WavEC, CTN, AZTI, RTSYS, UCC, and Ecole Centrale), and data managers (Hidromod).

The SafeWAVE project builds on the results of the WESE project completed in 2021. Its final aim is to develop a ‘Public Education and Engagement Strategy’ collaboratively with coastal communities in France, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, and demonstrate a framework for education and public engagement for marine renewable energies. 

The project launched in February 2021 and began collecting environmental data around GEPS Techno’s wave and solar energy hybrid WAVEGEM at the SEM-REV test site in France in July 2021.

In recent developments, WavEC conducted a fish population survey at Portugal’s Aguçadoura test site in August, as part of the SafeWAVE project environmental monitoring, providing data to inform future wave energy projects.