Annual Report 2018
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Chairperson’s Message

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A warm welcome to the 2018 OES Annual Report and I trust that you will find it informative and useful.

I must start this year’s Annual Report with the sad news of the passing of OES former chairman John Huckerby.

John Huckerby was nominated the New Zealand’s representative to the OES Executive Committee by the New Zealand Government in 2008.

John served as Chair of the OES over 4 years (2009 – 2012). During his mandate John submitted a new 5-year Strategic Plan to the IEA to secure a third 5-year mandate. John not only was responsible for producing a new 5-year Strategic Plan but it overhauled the OES ´brand´, by updating its name, its logo and, its website.

John had a strong commitment to make OES “the authoritative voice on ocean energy”. During his chairmanship he introduced a high sense of rigor in the OES activities and always guided the Executive Committee meetings in a very diplomatic and motivational way. He spread the OES all over the world, engaging with other international organizations and conferences promoting ocean energy internationally and will be fondly remembered by many people around the world.

For the content of this year’s report, I would like to thank all the member countries for their contributions. The country reports included here convey that 2018 has seen significant progress internationally for ocean energy. Several tidal projects achieved extensive operating hours with multi-GWhs of generation being clocked up globally. Wave energy technology has progressed with a number of large-scale laboratory and offshore tests having been successfully undertaken.

Our 2018 feature article is an interview with Jonathan Hodges, Senior Innovation Engineer, of Wave Energy Scotland and Lauren Moraski of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office. Together, they have been leading international collaboration on the development of Stage Gate Metrics for Ocean Energy that will provide a robust and common approach to managing innovation. A further featured article is on the successful ICOE 2018 conference hosted in Cherbourg, France by Amandine Volard, ICOE Conference Manager, including a message from the Linda Church Ciocci, Chair of the ICOE 2020 to be hosted in Washington D.C.

Many key achievements for wave and tidal projects are discussed throughout this report with some of my personal highlights below. The US DoE announced funding of $25m to support 12 next-generation marine energy technologies as well as enabling projects. In the UK, Orbital Marine Power concluded testing of their 2MW turbine and successfully raised £7m from 2,300 individual investors for a next generation device. Wave Energy Scotland selected 2 devices to go forward to realsea testing in 2020 with funding of £7.7m. In Europe there was further consolidation around three-bladed horizontal axis tidal turbines with vacant opportunities in France and beyond being actively pursued by other developers. In the southern hemisphere Australia is re-engaging with wave energy following the opening of Albany test site, led by Carnegie Clean Energy.

At a policy level ocean energy progresses within a global energy market that is seeing significant change. The imperative and drivers for renewable energy continue to increase whilst further downturns in the prospects for nuclear energy in key ocean energy markets are increasing headroom for low-carbon technologies. However, globally we are still waiting on clear market signals for ocean energy projects. Such market signals are vital for the industry to progress towards commercialisation.

In terms of the OES, 2018 saw progress made on a number of strategic tasks. The Stage Gate Metrics for Ocean Energy and Cost of Energy research is now being complimented by an assessment of employment and jobs stimulated by the sector. These strategic activities align with the OES Vision for International Deployment for Ocean Energy published in 2017 and which continues to drive OES’s strategy.

Finally, I’d like to thank Annie Dallman from the USA and Yann-Hervé De Roeck from France for all of their excellent work as vice-chairs of the OES during 2018. Many thanks also to our Executive Secretary Ana Brito e Melo for all of her hard work in putting this report together.

 

The country reports included here convey that 2018 has seen significant progress internationally for ocean energy. Several tidal projects achieved extensive operating hours with multi-GWhs of generation being clocked up globally. Wave energy technology has progressed with a number of large-scale laboratory and offshore tests having been successfully undertaken.