A new EUR 11 million project, funded by the Interreg NWE (North-West Europe) programme, part of the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund), has brought together Europe’s ocean energy test facilities to support demonstration of offshore wind, tidal, and wave energy technologies in real-sea conditions.
Led by the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), the FORESEA (Funding Ocean Renewable Energy through Strategic European Action) project will provide funding support to ocean energy technology developers to access Europe’s ocean energy test facilities: EMEC (Orkney Islands, UK), SmartBay (Galway, Ireland), SEM-REV (Nantes, France), and Tidal Testing Centre (Den Oever, Netherlands).
The test centres will be supported by European industry group Ocean Energy Europe, based in Brussels.
The first call for applicants to apply for support packages is scheduled to be announced later this month.
FORESEA will offer a series of funding and business development support packages to TRL 5+ ocean energy technology developers seeking to test and demonstrate in real-sea and grid-connected conditions, and leverage the further investment needed to take their product to market.