SI Ocean - beth?
I'm guessing that most of you have never heard of SI Ocean. Luckily we at Wales Marine have been up since the crack of dawn, scouring beaches for clues, and we've stumbled upon something quite interesting.
SI Ocean is a 2-year, European-funded project which aims to identify "practical solutions to removing a range of barriers to large-scale wave and tidal energy deployment". So far, so laudible.
The latest output from the project, which names amongst its partners such luminaries as RenewableUK, Ocean Energy Europe, and the Carbon Trust, is a weighty publication entitled "Wave and Tidal Energy Strategic Technology Agenda". It aims to do what it says on the tin, i.e. 'highlight strategic actions aimed at commercialisation' of the marine renewable technologies.
Some of the headline recommendations include:
Establish and reinforce programmes for development of novel technology and towards Technology Readiness Level (TRL) progression, with a strong emphasis on sub-systems
Validation of performance and reliability of devices, reaching capacity factors of >25% and availability of >75%
Standards and guidelines for evaluation and testing of devices
European cooperation for overarching issues
Demonstration facilities (England and Scotland have them - not so for us in Wales!)
Standardised procedures for installation and maintenance
The document weighs in at 42 pages, so there's clearly a lot of detail there beyond the headlines. You can check it out here.