The EU-funded Ocean DEMO project has awarded recommendations for support to ten offshore renewable energy developers under its 2nd call. The awards will support developers on their path to commercialisation and ease the transition of ocean energy towards multi-device farms by providing free access to open sea test sites.
Funded by Interreg North-West Europe, Ocean DEMO is a €13 million project aiming to accelerate ocean energy’s transition from single prototype to multi-device farms by providing free access to world-leading test centres: EMEC (UK), DMEC (NL), SEM REV (FR) and SmartBay (IE).
Successful applicants will receive free access to test their ocean energy products and services in real sea environments at the project’s network of test centres. Technology developers can apply for support packages to test multi-device arrays or single devices looking to scale up to multi-device in the future.
The following technology developers were recommended for support packages under the 2nd call by the Ocean DEMO Selection Board:
- AWS Ocean to deploy a scaled Waveswing wave energy converter at EMEC
- Dublin Offshore Consulting to test a scaled version of the Load Reduction Device on a mooring line at SmartBay
- EOLink to operate a 5MW floating wind demonstrator at SEM-REV
- Hydrogroup to demonstrate its innovative quick release connector at SEM-REV
- HydroWing to deploy the first scaled demonstrator of the HydroWing device at EMEC
- Ideol to monitor the mooring lines and umbilical systems of their floating offshore wind turbine at SEM-REV
- Nautricity to redeploy the CoRMaT tidal device at EMEC
- Pytheas Technology to test an innovative PTO at SEM-REV
- TFI to demonstrate a new elastomeric mooring component for floating offshore wind at SmartBay
- WaveRam to deploy 2 scaled Waveram wave energy converters at SmartBay
The support packages will provide a real boost to technology developers by allowing them to test their pioneering ocean energy technologies at sea. It will also help them attract further investment and move along the path to commercialisation.
Bevan Wray, Project Engineer at HydroWing said:
‘HydroWing Ltd are grateful and delighted to be a part of Interreg’s NWE Ocean Demo project, which is providing keystone sector support in de-risking the development of array scale ME technologies. This step is essential as we collectively endeavour to reach parity and commercialisation.
Ocean Demo support is enabling our team to accelerate the development of the innovative HydroWing technology, through access to the world-renowned testing facilities and expertise at EMEC. This testing period will allow the demonstration of the HydroWing’s cost, O&M and power reliability advantages and open the door to a pipeline of larger scale HydroWing deployments in the coming years.’