Ocean DEMO launches 4th call for marine renewable energy developers

The EU-funded Ocean DEMO project has opened its fourth call for applications for companies looking to get free access to test their ocean energy products and services in real sea environments at one of the test sites across Europe.

The new call, officially launched on 4 June 2021, will focus on supporting technology developers ready to deploy in 2021 or early 2022.

Technology developers can apply for support packages to test multi-device farms or single devices able to scale up to multi-device in the future, according to the project.

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.

The centres participating in the project include the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in UK, Dutch Marine Energy Centre (DMEC) in the Netherlands, SEM-REV in France, and SmartBay in Ireland.

The fourth Ocean DEMO call for applications is open until 10 September 2021, with call documents made available on the Ocean DEMO website.

Applications will be reviewed regularly, and support packages will be awarded on a first come first served basis, according to the project.

Lisa Fitzpatrick, project manager at EMEC and Ocean DEMO project leader, said: “The start of 2021 as been extremely busy for the Ocean DEMO project. We’ve had several large-scale deployments, and a lot of activity in our different test sites over the past few months.

“Despite delays in 2020, technology developers are still ready and eager to test their devices and push the sector forwards. This shows the resilience of the ocean energy industry and is very encouraging for the future of the project. With this fourth call, we’re hoping to make the most of the time we have left in the project and get as many machines in the water as we can, as soon as we can”.

Building on the many deployments of Ocean DEMO-supported technologies earlier in the year, the fourth call will further strengthen the project’s pipeline.

Long term real-sea testing is fundamental to achieve Ocean DEMO’s goal of boosting the ocean energy industry towards commercialisation.

Maximising the numbers of deployments in 2021 and early 2022 will allow developers to prove the reliability and efficiency of their devices before the end of the project in 2023, the project developers expect.

The Ocean DEMO partners are also working on a brochure which will present and promote the ocean energy industry to potential investors.

This document will be available publicly for technology developers to use.

Feedback from industry actors on their interactions with investors is needed to make this document as impactful as possible.

Therefore, an online survey has also been opened until the end of June to capture the input and experiences of technology developers.