Abstract
Every year since its inception in 2001 the Ocean Energy Systems Implementing Agreement (OES) Executive Committee (ExCo) has published an Annual Report, which details its activities over the previous year and includes on ocean energy activities supplied by each ExCo member country. The 2008 Annual Report started a tradition of including a series of invited articles, on a specific theme, by acknowledged industry experts. These invited articles examine current issues in the development of ocean energy technologies and provide insights into changing circumstances within ocean energy, e.g., forecasting cost of energy for different technologies.
The OES Annual Report is the best guide to recent and current activity in ocean energy technology developments and deployments. The OES ExCo adopted a new 5-year Strategic Plan in February 2012, which has the vision that OES will become the “Authoritative International Voice for Ocean Energy”. This vision is being realized by documents, such as the “International Vision for Ocean Energy”, published in 2012 and the ongoing publication of Annual Reports. The ExCo is committed to a high standard of content and high production values in the production of these reports. The Annual Reports, which are available on the new OES website – www.ocean-energy-systems.org - are widely regarded as one of the key authoritative information sources on ocean energy developments.
In May 2012 the ExCo decided that, with 5 years’ worth of invited articles, it would be valuable to collect these articles together into a single volume as a reference source, which documents the recent developments in ocean energy in OES countries. So this volume is intended as an authoritative reference on developments in ocean energy, as they occurred in a year-on-year progression.
2008: Global Status and Perspectives of Ocean Energy Technologies
Fittingly the first set of invited papers was chosen to set a marker for the development of different ocean energy technologies. The OES ExCo chose the six invited authors, because they were each acknowledged experts in their fields and were actively involved in current developments. Five authors provided comprehensive papers on tidal range, tidal stream, wave, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) and salinity power technologies. The sixth author addressed the utilization of ocean energy to produce drinking water.
2009: Key Technical and Non-technical Challenges for Ocean Energy
The second set of papers was themed around barriers to the uptake and acceleration of ocean energy technologies and how to mitigate these barriers. The papers discussed concepts, such as decarbonization of energy systems, structured development programmes for device developments to mitigate risks, conflicts and synergies in the use of ocean space, international regulatory practices for ocean energy and, finally, the benefits of standardization of ocean energy systems.
The 2009 report was also the first to include statistical tables on R, D and D investment, installed ocean energy capacity and involvement of international electrical utilities.
2010: Key Facilitators for Ocean Energy
The OES ExCo decided to follow the 2009 review of challenges for ocean energy with a set of papers on key facilitators. The first paper addressed the establishment of INORE, the International Network of Offshore Renewable Energy, a group set up by Ph.D. students in NW Europe to provide a forum for younger researchers. OES has become a sponsor of INORE activities, particularly in its expansion into the Asia-Pacific region. A second paper summarized a series of presentations given at the 3rd International Conference on Ocean Energy (ICOE) in Bilbao on moving ocean energy to the industrial scale. Lastly, the third paper analyzed market drivers for investors and policy makers in ocean energy.
2011: Marine Spatial Planning and Ocean Energy
Over the last few years the concept of marine spatial planning (MSP) has become a practice in some countries – an integrated approach to managing and allocating marine resources and space for competing activities. Marine spatial planning uses a map-based methodology to produce an inclusive synthesis to a particular marine area.
There are, however, different geographic approaches to marine spatial planning, which are not yet internationally or consistently adopted. Further, consideration of the space/resource requirements of ocean energy has come late to the MSP process. The first paper described the concepts and practices of MSP whilst the remaining invited authors described how MSP was operating in their regions – the European Union, the State of Oregon, the wider United States coasts and New Zealand.
2012: Development of the International Ocean Energy Industry Performance Improvements and Cost Reductions
Although the growth of an ocean energy industry had been identified as a key facilitator for ocean energy in the 2010 Annual Report, the ExCo wanted to refocus on industry development, particularly as there was growing evidence of a broadening of potential investors in ocean energy (particularly amongst the international electrical equipment and turbine manufacturing companies), together with an increasing focus on supply chain developments, rather than device developments.
The four papers looked at disparate industry topics, including cost reduction pathways for wave energy, a utility’s perspective on cost and performance of ocean energy technologies, a regulator’s view of the development of ocean energy in the United Kingdom and, finally, a Canadian industry perspective on transforming a disparate group of ‘technology push’ advocates into a ‘market pull’ industry, resourced to install the first wave and tidal power array projects.