Current technological developments and growing concern for global warming should lead to a more promising and reassuring outlook for ocean energy in the future. At present operational ocean energy systems are mostly restricted to experimental or
demonstration units and to date only one wave farm project is underway.
Marine energy is not yet fully commercialized and several barriers to its future development may still be identified. In particular it is difficult to compare different technologies because of the absence of internationally recognized standards for development, testing and measurement.
The Equimar project will deliver a suite of protocols for the equitable evaluation of marine energy converters (tidal and wave). These protocols will harmonise testing and evaluation procedures across the wide variety of devices presently under development. The aim of such protocols is to accelerate adoption through enhancement of technology matching to resource and to establish improved understanding of the environmental and economic impacts associated with the deployment of arrays of devices. Results from Equimar will establish a sound base for future standards (IEC).
One of the first objectives of EquiMar is to build a knowledge base for marine energy systems with respect to all the areas covered by the project.
Through the analysis of the relevant pre-existing information in the sector of marine energy and other similar industries it will provide important guidelines for other technical tasks. It will be also important to collect impressions and needs directly from the stakeholders that will address the future work. For that purpose a consultation to key stakeholders will be carried out. Different actors and interested parties in marine energy, such as developers, investors, certification bodies, power distributors and policy makers, will be invited to contribute with a questionnaire to determine needs and constraints.
