Waveplam

The participation in European Projects has become a common activity for SMEs (small-and medium-sized enterprises), R&D Institutes and Universities involved in scientific activities and technology development. The involvement in such research projects often brings along added value for the development of new products and services and improvement of existing ones. The Framework Programmes (FPs) are the financial tools of the European Union aiming to support research and development activities since 1984. FP7 is now running from the period 2007 to 2013, and projects on wave energy have already started.

Due to the plain uptake of FP7-financed projects, 2008 has been a very active year for international collaboration between entities involved in wave energy and these projects are the result of the common interest to speed up the introduction of this renewable energy in the market. In the following sections, an outline about three wave energy projects expected to contribute to the sector’s advance in general are described briefly.

Equimar – a large pre-normative effort

In April 2008, a major project emerged under the FP7 collaboration project scheme: Equimar - Equitable Testing and Evaluation of Marine Energy Extraction Devices in terms of Performance, Cost and Environmental Impact. The consortium involves 23 partners and is coordinated by the University of Edinburgh. EquiMar will assess devices through a suite of protocols covering site selection, device engineering design, the scaling up of designs, the deployment of arrays of devices, environmental impact, in terms of both biological & coastal processes and economic issues. A series of protocols will be developed through robust, auditable processes and disseminated to the wider community. By liaising with the relevant industrial players, certification bodies, standard committees and other groups involved in pre-normative wave energy activities, the project is expected to give a significant contribution to the acceleration of acceptance of common procedures, which is considered a valuable contribution to the rise of the sector.

https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/EquiMarwiki/EquiMar

Components for Ocean Renewable Energy Systems

CORES, Components for Ocean Renewable Energy Systems, is also a collaborative FP7 RTD project with funding from the European Commission, having started in April 2008 running over the next three years. This project is coordinated by Hydraulics & Maritime Research Centre of the University College Cork and brings together 13 partners across 7 European countries.

The main objective of CORES is to create a wave to wire modelling “Toolbox” which will allow developers to evaluate the effect of changes in device components on the performance and economics. This Toolbox will consist of a number of numerical models or “tools” developed within the individual Work Packages (air turbine, electrical and controls, moorings) that will be validated through laboratory scale testing using the floating OWC pilot plant, the OEBuoy, developed by the Irish company Ocean Energy, installed at sea in Galway Bay Test Site (Ireland). The project concentrates its activities on the development of new device concepts and components for power-take-off, control, moorings, risers, data acquisition and instrumentation based on floating OWC systems.

http://hmrc.ucc.ie/cores/about.html

The newer-birth of a successful researcher exchange network

The project wavetrain2 – Initial Training Network funded under the PF7/People has started in October 2008 and aims to train a group of scientists in the field of wave energy to serve the rising industry’s need of especially qualified professionals with a unique background, following its successful predecessor FP6 Marie Curie Network RTN Wavetrain project.

The new consortium, coordinated by the Wave Energy Centre, joins 13 formal partners and liaises with 17 associated entities. The work plan for Wavetrain2 fellows is specifically directed towards a wide range of challenges that industrial-scale wave energy implementation faces in the present situation, with some bias towards technical issues, from hydrodynamic and PTO (Power-Take-Off) design, to instrumentation issues and energy storage and cost reduction show to be critical for successful deployment. On the other hand, also non-technical “barriers”, typically less tangible difficulties related to legal issues (licensing, conflicts of use, EIA procedures, grid connection, regional differences) and the nonsufficient representation of socio-economic benefits of the sector, will be dealt with, as they are seen as a major obstacle for fast implementation on a European scale.

The core of this project is the employment of researchers in others than their home country, in order to increase international mobility. Overall wavetrain2 will contract 594 researcher-months, allowing young professionals to be trained specifically as wave energy engineers by a leading and experienced group of institutions

www.wavetrain.eu (www.wavetrain.info)

If you which to obtain more information about the 7^th Framework Programme or its projects, you can visit the following website: http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html