Strategy and National Targets
During 2008, the Government appointed REN – Redes Energéticas Nacionais (National Energy Networks) S.G.P.S., S.A. to create a company to manage the Wave Energy Pilot Zone. In 2010, the Government approved the minutes for the contract with REN – Resolution from the Council of Ministers n049/2010 (1 July), which led to its signature. A company named ENONDAS was created to manage the Pilot Zone. The Government aims to get up to 4MW per technology of installed capacity on the pilot for demonstration purposes and up to 20MW of installed capacity for pre-commercial technology.

Main Public Funding Mechanisms
“Fundo de Apoio à Inovação – FAI”. The Innovation Support Fund is intended primarily to finance the national scientific system in the field of innovation and technological development, primarily in the area of renewables, mainly wind power.
FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology) is the main Portuguese national agency responsible for continuously promoting the advancement of scientific and technological knowledge, exploring opportunities that become available in any scientific or technological domain, including marine energy.

Relevant Legislation and Regulation
Legislation is under review aiming to establish new targets to the incentives for renewable energies. 

Government Funded R&D
The Government acknowledged the need to maintain a group on a national laboratory, Laboratório Nacional de Energia e Geologia, IP (LNEG), performing research and development on ocean energy. The ocean energy group has been working on the development of new concepts for extracting wave energy, namely on the numerical simulation of floating OWCs with alternative geometries. The group has been working on the performance improvement of point absorbers with hydraulic and pneumatic power-take-off (PTO) equipment (self-rectifying air turbines), namely on what concerns the hydrodynamic performance as well as geometry optimization and PTO control. LNEG has been engaged with European Union (EU) Demowfloat project as well as EU Seanergy 2020 project and to the development of a new roadmap for Portuguese offshore energy. The continuous improvement of a Geographical Information System (GIS) database, developed at LNEG for site selection of wave energy farms, has continued to provide guidance for installation of wave energy devices in the country. 

Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) has been active in the development of a spar-buoy oscillating water column wave energy converter. Model testing at scale 1:16 took place in September and October 2012 at the large wave tank of The National Renewable Energy Centre (NAREC),Northern England, within the framework of the European programme MARINET. The work also includes topologies for slack mooring systems of compact arrays. Development work is also being performed at IST on a new type of self-rectifying air turbine, named Biradial turbine, for wave energy applications. Results from model testing indicate that the turbine is capable of remarkably good performance. IST is collaborating with the Portuguese company Kymaner in the design of a prototype of the turbine to be tested at the Pico OWC plant, in the Azores. Another new concept of a floating wave energy converter (WEC) is under investigation and development. It is based on a closed asymmetric floater with an internal U-tank partially filled with water and two lateral reservoirs connected with a tube. During the reporting period improvements have been made on the numerical model of this WEC.

Instituto Superior Técnico will provide, starting in February 2013, a full one semester specialization on Ocean Renewable Energy (waves, tidal currents, offshore wind), integrated into the three-semester European Master in Renewable Energy organized by the European Renewable Energy Research Centre (EUREC) Agency and involving 11 European Universities. 

Participation in Collaborative International Projects

MARINET (2011-2015) - The aim of this project is to coordinate research and development at all scales (small models through to prototype scales from laboratory through to open sea tests) and to allow access for researchers and developers into facilities, which are not available universally in Europe. WavEC and IST are participating in this project.

TROPOS (2011-2015) - “Modular Multi-use Deep Water Offshore Platform Harnessing and Servicing Mediterranean, Subtropical and Tropical Marine and Maritime Resources”. The aim is to develop a floating modular multi-use platform system for use in deep waters. WavEC is participating in this project.

SOWFIA (2010-2012) – “Streamlining of Ocean Wave Farms Impact Assessment”. The aim is to facilitate the development of European wide, coordinated, unified, and streamlined environmental and socio-economic impact Assessment tools for offshore wave energy conversion developments. WavEC is participating in this project.

FAME (2010-2012) - “The Future of the Atlantic Marine Environment” - financed by the EC INTERREG IV programme, with the aim to link the protection of natural values, specifically biodiversity (avifauna) with economic activities at the European Atlantic Ocean. WavEC is participating in this project.

WAVEPORT (2009-2012) - “Demonstration & Deployment of a Commercial Scale Wave Energy Converter with an Innovative Real Time Wave by Wave Tuning System”, with the aim to demonstrate a large scale grid connected Powerbuoy Technology. WavEC is participating in this project.

DEMOWFLOAT (2011-2014) - The objective of the DEMOWFLOAT project is to demonstrate the longterm Windfloat performance, operationality, maintainability, reliability, platform accessibility, feasible grid integration on a modular basis, among several other aspects with an impact on availability of the system and, therefore, on the cost of produced energy. LNEG and WavEC have been participating in this project.

SEANERGY 2020 (2009-2012) - The objective of the SEANERGY 2020 project is to formulate and to promote concrete policy recommendations on how to best deal with and remove maritime spatial planning (MSP) policy obstacles to the deployment of offshore renewable power generation. LNEG has been participating in this project.

WavEC has been further participating in the project “Structural Design of Wave Energy Devices” (http://www.sdwed.civil.aau.dk/), coordinated by Aalborg University and supported by the Danish Council for Strategic Research and became also involved in two new projects initiated in 2012:

1. SI Ocean “Strategic Initiative for Ocean Energy Development” aiming to identify and develop a wide consensus on the most effective way to tackle the key barriers to delivering a commercial wave and tidal energy sector in Europe, with support from the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (EACI) and funded by Intelligent Energy - Europe (IEE).
    
2. PolyWEC - Electro-active Polymers for Wave Energy Conversion, under the EU FP7 programme.

WavEC and IST are involved in the Offshore Test Station (OTS), funded by KIC InnoEnergy, in which base technology is being developed. This includes development of hardware and software for environmental monitoring, a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) tooling, components and methods for subsea cable connection, a PTO concept for combined wave-wind OWC wave energy converters and operations and maintenance (O&M) software modules for resource forecast & power and platform motions.

Portugal, through WavEC, also participates in the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA). 

Operational Ocean Energy projects

Pico Plant
On the Island of Pico, Azores, WavEC runs an OWC (Oscillating Water Column; www.pico-owc.net) type wave energy plant, presently among the very few functional wave power plants world-wide. At present, efforts are focused to attract funding for preparing the plant as open test centre, as one full-scale turbine duct in the structure is available. Pico OWC is a unique structure, allowing testing commercially-sized turbines and auxiliary equipments (up to ~700kW). Despite its inclusion in the EC large-scale infrastructure project MARiNET (http://www.fp7.marinet.eu/) and the proof of technology demonstrated over the last 2-3 years, the plant requires substantial investment in order to enable another 5-10 years of service. 

New Developments

WaveRoller The 300 kW WaveRoller unit (3 x 100 kW) has been deployed, near Peniche, deeper than its design depth, in order to collect validation data for previous tank tests and fine-tune the software that enables array optimization for future projects. The device have recently been brought to the surface and towed to the harbour as a part of an O&M exercise. After maintenance and minor repair the power plant will be re-configured and redeployed with only one operational panel. Subsequently, the plant will be deployed with two- and threepanel configurations to gather as much data as possible about the different deployment configurations.