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Oceans and fisheries
News announcement25 September 2019Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries

Towards the energy of the future! New call for proposals for environmental monitoring of tidal and wave energy.

The European Commission has published a new call for grants to support the development of ocean energy in Europe. Budgeted at € 2.3 million, this call wants to attract projects that can improve environmental monitoring of tidal and wave energy devices. Interested? Have a look at the Commission’s Funding Portal for more detail. Deadline for applications is 15 January 2020.

Ocean energy is a promising source for clean, predictable and reliable energy made in the EU. It could contribute to the EU's energy independence and its objective of sourcing at least 32% of EU energy consumption from renewables by 2030. The EU is currently the global leader in ocean energy technologies.

With the call for grants, the European Commission wants to help future deployments by de-risking and documenting the licensing process.

More specific, the objectives of the projects will be to:

  1. Increase environmental data and knowledge of impacts of ocean energy devices
  2. Improve modelling of potential impacts
  3. Build capacity among ocean energy developers and Member States’ authorities
  4. Feed the public debate and inform stakeholders

Background

The Ocean Energy Strategic Roadmap “Building Ocean Energy for Europe” published in November 2016 identified de-risking environmental consenting as a key challenge.

Developers’ application for consent requires a sound understanding of environmental assessment and processes applied to ocean energy. However, deployments of ocean energy devices are without precedent and there is limited empirical data that could inform the regulatory process. Obtaining consent for an emerging technology such as ocean energy can be time consuming and costly. This also entails the need for public information, consultation and support. Consenting processes, thus, need to be anticipated, tailored and proportionate.

Close environmental monitoring and impact assessment and an early understanding of these aspects will benefit the current and future deployments of the ocean energy sector as a whole, by putting in place a guiding framework within which to establish protocol for regulatory assessments, licensing, control and monitoring. This will help to steer the transition from research and development to commercial deployment of new technologies.

More information and application

Commission’s Funding Portal

References

DIRECTIVE (EU) 2018/2001 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 11 December 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources

JRC Ocean Energy Status Report 2016

Ocean Energy Strategic Roadmap “Building Ocean Energy for Europe”

Details

Publication date
25 September 2019
Author
Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries