|8 November 2016|
Europe
Ten of Europe’s most exciting ocean energy developers have been granted free access to the continent’s premier testing sites to help accelerate the commercialisation of their technologies.
The high costs involved with testing early stage technologies is a major barrier for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The FORESEA (Funding Ocean Renewable Energy through Strategic European Action) Programme seeks to overcome this obstacle by providing access to test centres in North-West Europe where SMEs can properly assess their tech in real sea conditions.
Funded by the Interreg North West Europe programme, part of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) the €11m project is backed by the European Marine Energy Centre in Scotland, SEM-REV (France), SmartBay (Ireland) and the Stichting Tidal Testing Centre (Netherlands). These are the best in the region.
Patrik Moller, CEO of CorPower Ocean – a wave energy technology developer and recipient of a FORESEA award, said: “This FORESEA award is an important part of the financial package which will help us to fully capitalise on our installation at EMEC, leverage further investment, and progress towards the marketplace.”
The 10 recipients were announced today at the Ocean Energy Europe 2016 Conference & Exhibition in Brussels.
“We are very proud to obtain this FORESEA award. It will help us finance sea trials on the SEM-REV site and then to reach sea-proven status with a new power range for our technology. Being selected as a promising technology is also a very positive sign for our future investors,“ said Jean-Luc Longeroche, chairman & CEO of Geps Techno – a wave energy powered autonomous platform developer and recipient of a FORESEA award.
