On September 10, 2025, Ocean Energy Systems-Environmental (OES-Environmental) hosted a workshop at the European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference (EWTEC) in Madeira, Portugal, to discuss the environmental acceptability of marine renewable energy (MRE) devices. This process involves examining tidal and wave devices and their supporting infrastructure to understand component-level environmental risks, identify opportunities to improve the environmental acceptability of MRE, and assess potential induced environmental benefits. This information will be used to provide tailored advice to developers, regulators, and stakeholders for MRE device selection, design, and operation.
The workshop began with brief introductions that were followed by a presentation on the environmental acceptability of MRE devices. The presentation began with an overview of OES-Environmental, a summary of the current knowledge on environmental effects of MRE, and a description of the information needed to apply the concept of environmental acceptability to MRE devices. Following the presentation, two use cases were presented: tidal energy and collision risk, and wave energy and underwater noise. Workshop participants were then engaged in a guided group discussion to address opportunities and challenges for the environmental acceptability process for each of the use cases.
This workshop was organized by Lysel Garavelli (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), Ian Hutchison (Aquatera Ltd.), Natalia Rojas (Aquatera Ltd.), and Maria Apolonia (Aquatera Ltd.).