This morning, Allard van Hoeken from Bluewater Energy Services opened a conference on wave and tidal energy at the Offshore Energy 2013 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
These emerging energy industries deserve a lot of attention as they are fighting for their place in the renewables market. Themes of the conference were mainly focused on the development of technologies that could exploit the vast resources of clean sea energy across Europe, which are still untapped, as well as the financing of those technologies and their commercialization.
Mr. van Hoeken introduced the latest achievements of Bluewater’s BlueTEC, floating support platform for tidal turbines, a structure that makes inspection and repair easier and cheaper. The company is working with different turbine developers on various projects related to the platform.
Ferdinand Dees from Mojo Maritime spoke about unlocking tidal energy, saying that the key is to have successful installation, safe operation and constant technology development, and he highlighted collaboration as being the most important thing. “Carbons you can only burn once, but the tide never stops,” Mr. Dees said. He made a presentation about their HiFlo 4 Installation Vessel, which can help in advancing the tidal energy sector. “I believe this project is a giant step forward for the industry,” he highlighted.
Kim Nielsen, Wave Energy Consultant at Rambøll, presented the wave energy development in Denmark and said that by 2030 “we’ll have something that could be compared to offshore wind”, adding that it will be even cheaper.
Niels Lange, from Schottel, made a presentation about the SCHOTTEL TIDAL Generator (STG 50), which has passive-adaptive blades and is a new approach on the market, focusing especially on high efficiency at relatively low investment and maintenance costs.
Finally, Albert Jochems of the Green Giraffe Energy Bankers held a presentation about the investment in these technologies. He said that investors look at offshore installation as being “scary”, so they need to see that the technology actually works in the long-term.
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Offshore Wind staff, October 15, 2013; Image: navingo