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18 Feb 2019
The Marine Energy Week conference “Offshore Energy: a growing market” took place on 13 February, as part of World Maritime Week, co-sponsored by Iberdrola and the Basque Energy Cluster. It was divided into two large sessions – one focused on reviewing the current status and prospects of the main forms of offshore energy, and another that talked about the development of the main technological projects that are driving forces in this area.
The event was opened by Iñigo Ansola, General Manager of the Basque Energy Agency (EVE), and José Ignacio Hormaeche, Managing Director of the Basque Energy Cluster, who later on was the moderator of a round table with representatives of Iberdrola, DG-Mare and Siemens Gamesa. Both of them highlighted the technological capability of offshore energy companies, as well as the regional support for the development of new technologies in this field, which is a sector that has a great future in a growing market.
Offshore O&M Director at Iberdrola, Víctor Rey, highlighted the speed at which innovation is being applied to offshore wind energy, and he stressed how technological breakthroughs have proved to be important for cost reduction.
Xavier Guillou, Director-General of DG Mare, who is in charge of the European Commission's maritime and fisheries policies, shared his view of and what he expects from marine energy over the next few decades. This type of energy is estimated to account for a fourth of the energy generated worldwide by 2050. In the same sense, according to Poul Skjærbæk, Chief Innovation Officer of SGRE, offshore wind energy can potentially bring prices down, which would accelerate growth and the development of new markets.
There was then a debate that mainly focused on the analysis of floating wind energy, the digitalisation of offshore technologies and the recurrent theme of cost reduction.
The second part of the debate revolved around technological development projects in collaboration with other organisations, moderated by Jose Luis Villate, Offshore Renewable Energy Director at Tecnalia. The following companies were also present: Nautilus Floating Solutions, Vicinay Marine Innovation, Iberdrola Renovables and Idom-Oceantec. These companies presented innovation projects: FLOW (led by Nautilus), HARSH (presented by Vicinay and led by Erreka), ROMEO (led by Iberdrola) and OPERA (led by Idom-Oceantec). The first two are regional projects funded by the Hazitek programme and the other two are European projects.
Finally, in the afternoon session, support mechanisms for the marine energy sector were presented. This session was moderated by Xavier Guillou and included presentations by the following organisations: OEE, CDTI, WES and BiMEP.
Keyword
Technology
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