For ocean energy to grow it is essential that all stakeholders provide a unified approach, together. ETIP Ocean will create a platform for such an approach, and will encourage and promote collective development of stakeholder networks. Through transfer of experience and lessons learnt, duplication of effort will be avoided, helping the sector overcome barriers and challenges efficiently. ETIP Ocean will support the Technology Platform for ocean energy, and assist the EC and Member States in defining research programmes, financial instruments and addressing barriers to the development of the sector. This in turn will provide the SET-Plan with input from a wide range of stakeholders, facilitating development and roll-out of its activities. ETIP Ocean will create cohesion amongst stakeholders through a series of webinars, interview sessions, surveys, workshops and conferences, specific to the priority needs of the sector. These will be determined at the beginning of the project. The project activities will look at technical and non-technical barriers, with specific focus on technology development, environmental and socio-economic issues, and financial issues affecting the sector. Activities will be aligned with events of existing initiatives to maximise the number of participants engaged. These activities will feed into a single integrated strategy report, which will be the result of the work carried out over the project lifetime. The document will present a united vision of the sector and provide recommendations to take the ocean energy industry to commercialisation. In addition to sector specific activities, the project will engage civil society through guest speaker, conference attendance opportunities, and through interactive and downloadable educational materials. It is through the engagement with a range of stakeholders that ETIP Ocean will act as a one-stop-shop for the ocean energy sector to create a cohesive approach to identifying and overcoming challenges

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.

ETIP Ocean 2 has 3 strategic objectives: - Ensure optimal use of existing resources for the sector and streamline sectoral activities; - Support and accelerate European and global deployment of ocean energy; - Ensure that the potential benefits for European industry and society are maximised. The European ocean energy sector has major potential. To reach this potential sectoral stakeholders must collaborate, share knowledge, and avoid the duplication of efforts. There is also a need for close cooperation between the public and private stakeholders. The ETIP Ocean 2 project has been designed to deliver this. Stakeholder exchanges via the ETIP Ocean platform will be strengthened. A series of structured and targeted webinars and workshops will be organised. These will cover the key challenges facing the ocean energy sector – in the domains of technology, finance, social and environmental – and will allow stakeholders from across the sector to exchange and coordinate. Based upon stakeholder exchanges, a series of accessible and information-based studies and reports will be released. The work to produce these publications will focus exchanges, and will help ensure that learnings from the project are widely disseminated. They will be accessible to those who did not participate directly, and will preserve learnings beyond the lifetime of the project. Finally, ETIP Ocean 2 will support the coordination of public and private stakeholders. By acting as a bridge to the SET Plan Ocean Energy Working Group, ETIP Ocean 2 will ensure that sectoral activities are aligned with the actions and objectives of the SET Plan Ocean Energy Implementation Plan. The ETIP Ocean 2 project will engage all stakeholders and foster cooperation; align stakeholders to commonly agreed goals; find novel approaches to the development of technological and social processes related to the energy transition, and coordinate stakeholders in the context of the SET Plan Ocean Energy Implementation Plan.

There is 10GW of predictable, high-value tidal stream energy potential in European waters, with up to 100 GW of capacity globally . This is an almost entirely unharnessed clean energy resource, with just 13 MW currently deployed . Transitioning European market leading technologies from single deployments, up to farm scale, is the next milestone in harnessing this clean, predictable, secure, domestic energy resource. EURO-TIDES has been developed specifically to address the call topic by delivering a 9.6MW farm of four 2.4MW Orbital tidal energy devices of the same series. The farm will operate in full operational conditions for 15 years, deploying in 2027. The EURO-TIDES consortium will work collaboratively to deliver six ambitious objectives and drive the sector forwards: 1. De-risking tidal energy technology development by delivering a 9.6MW pilot farm and three pilot farm system innovations; reducing Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) of Orbital’s floating tidal technology from €120/MWh to <€100/MWh. 2. Increase bankability and insurability by providing 17,520 hours of operational data, displaying the production of 50GWh+, and verification of key technology metrics to internationally recognised methodologies: reducing cost of capital from 10%-12% to 5%-6%. 3. Increase availability of tidal stream by creating an efficient robust, replicable, and reliable operations and maintenance programme: increasing availability to 95%+. 4. Improve market confidence by developing industrial design and manufacturing processes: increasing supply chain capacity from one device per annum to 80 devices per annum. 5. Increase knowledge of environmental impacts to ensure appropriate environmental protection and mitigation is in place: enabling safe scalability to a 100GW+ global market. 6. Making performance, reliability and behavior data collected from the demonstration publicly available: accelerating scalability, commercialisation, and deployment of a 2GW+ project pipeline.

The world faces the challenges of transitioning to net zero emissions to combat climate change, requiring a shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, like wave energy. Yet, the integration of wave energy into the global energy mix is not without hurdles. Harnessing the power of ocean waves requires innovative and reliable technologies that can withstand the harsh marine environment while ensuring consistent energy generation. Moreover, the pursuit of sustainable energy production extends beyond emissions reduction, to embrace circular economies. Circular economies advocate for a holistic approach where resources are continually reused, repurposed, and recycled, thus minimising waste and maximising resource efficiency. For the wave energy sector, this means not only developing efficient power take-off systems but also considering the lifecycle impacts of materials, manufacturing, installation, operation, and decommissioning. The MEGA PTO Wave project aims to provide an enabling technology to transform ocean waves into clean, reliable energy. Through this project, a smart, scalable system will be created that adapts to changing conditions and keeps working even if a part of the system experiences a fault. By designing all aspects of the MEGA PTO to be highly modular, incorporating novel axial flux magnetic gear, electrical generator technology and adaptable power electronics, the project will make energy production more efficient and eco-friendly. This modularity creates a system that is easier to manufacture, transport, install, maintain, remove and recycle, than alternatives. The MEGA PTO Wave project brings together expertise from all over the EU to create a PTO linked to sustainable supply chains, to accelerate wave energy commercialisation to capture vast amounts of predictable energy in a sustainable and cost effective manner, in order to meet EU NetZero targets by 2050.