The global potential to harness the power of ocean waves is huge. Europe has 44% of wave energy patents as well as some of the best resources on its Atlantic coastlines. Wave energy technology has, however, not yet achieved commercial viability and conventional public technology innovation support schemes have had only limited success. Convergence/consolidation is needed to deliver the technology the market requires. Without this, investors and industrial developers will not have the confidence to engage with the sector and help make it a significant contributor to the future low carbon energy mix. EuropeWave builds on the success of the regionally funded PCP programme known as Wave Energy Scotland (WES), set up in 2014 and expands this concept to the European level as mandated by the SET Plan Implementation Plan for ocean energy. WES will be the coordinator of the proposed EuropeWave project and lead a ‘Buyers Group’ of public authorities from the UK (Scotland - WES) and the Basque Country (EVE). The consortium is completed by Ocean Energy Europe, the sector’s representative body, who will enable the widest possible engagement with those influential stakeholders able to maximise the environmental, economic and social benefits of wave energy technology for Europe. EuropeWave brings together over €22.5m of national, regional and EU funding to provide the boost to Europe’s wave energy innovation community necessary to transition to commercial viability. This will be achieved by procuring a phased competitive programme of R&D to pull forward those technologies that can demonstrate the best potential to achieve the technical and economic performance metrics that will make them investor-ready. Approximately 7 technologies are expected to enter the programme via an open OJEU call with the best performing technologies completing a physical demonstration in the marine environment.

The SET Implementation Plan for Ocean Energy (IP) was adopted by the SET-Plan Steering Committee on the 21st of March 2018. The IP was prepared by a Temporary Working Group, with representatives from the European Commission, Member States and other stakeholders. For the execution of the IP, the TWG has evolved to assume the role of the Implementation Working Group (IWG). Support for the OE sector to date has focused on the development of research and roadmaps which have set out the aspirations of wave and tidal sector. The principle of the IP is to transform those aspirations into operational actions. The actions listed within the IP are primarily based upon the Ocean Energy Strategic Roadmap, which has been agreed by the EC, MS, Regions, stakeholders and the wider ocean energy sector. The ambition of the IP is to outline a structured approach that will enable wave and tidal technologies to follow a credible development path, with the ultimate destination of a commercially viable products and industry. The target timescale presented in the IP is 2025 for tidal technologies and 2030 for wave technologies. OceanSET will assist the IWG to continue their work to deliver on the targets set in the IP. In particular OceanSET will focus on assessing the progress of the ocean energy sector and will monitor the National and EU funded projects in delivering successful supports. Relevant data will be collected annually and will be used to inform MS and EU Commission on progress of the sector, it will also be used to review what works and what doesn’t and to assess how to maximise the benefit of the funding streams provided across the MS, Regions and the EC. The partners on this project include representatives from Ireland (SEAI), UK (WES, University of Edinburgh), France (FEM), Portugal (DGEG), Spain (EVE, PLOCAN), Italy (ENEA) and from the industry (OEE). The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) will be lead partner on the project.

Ocean Energy can play an important role in addressing one of the EU’s biggest challenges: providing clean, affordable and sustainable energy. However, ocean energy technologies are not yet mature enough to overcome all challenges related to performance, reliability, survivability, and resulting cost of energy. DTOceanPlus will accelerate the commercialisation of the Ocean Energy sector by developing and demonstrating an open source suite of design tools for the selection, development, deployment and assessment of ocean energy systems (including sub-systems, energy capture devices and arrays). This will align innovation and development processes with those used in mature engineering sectors. - Technology concept selection will be facilitated by a Structured Innovation tool. - Technology development will be enabled by a Stage-Gate tool. - Technology deployment will be supported by a 2nd generation of the FP7 DTOcean tools. This suite of design tools will reduce the technical and financial risks of the technology to achieve the deployment of cost-competitive wave and tidal arrays. DTOceanPlus will underpin a rapid reduction in the Levelised Cost of Energy offered by facilitating improvement in the reliability, performance and survivability of ocean energy systems and analysing the impact of design on energy yield, O&M and the environment, thus making the sector more attractive for private investment. These objectives and impacts will be achieved through the implementation of 9 work packages covering user engagement, tool development, demonstration of tools against real projects (thus outputting a suite of tools at TRL 6), analysis of supply chains and potential markets, exploitation, dissemination and education. The DTOceanPlus consortium has been formed to include representatives of all key user and stakeholder groups. It includes all core partners from the FP7 DTOcean project along with the developers of Europe’s leading ocean energy sub-systems, devices and arrays.