Ireland’s Centre for Marine and Renewable Energy (MaREI) and the Lir National Ocean Test Facility (Lir-NOTF) have won awards during Ireland’s national maritime festival SeaFest for their contribution to the development of marine renewables.
MaREI and the Lir National Ocean Test Facility won the Excellence in Marine Research Award, and the Excellence in Marine Renewable Energy Award respectively at the recently held Marine Industry Awards held in Galway as part of SeaFest 2017.
Lir-NOTF is a custom designed test facility which operates within the MaREI Centre at the Beaufort Building in Cork, Ireland. It houses the infrastructure for small to medium scale laboratory testing of ocean and maritime systems.
Jerry Murphy , Director of MaREI, said: “I am delighted to receive this award on behalf of the MaREI Centre. The Centre continues to grow and represents six institutes across Ireland, employs over 180 researchers and has over 45 industry partners. This latest success reflects the cutting edge and impactful research that we are carrying out across the marine, marine renewable energy and renewable sectors.”
The awards reflect MaREI’s contribution to excellence in Ireland’s maritime economy which, in 2016, showed a 23% increase in turnover, a 20% increase in gross value added (GVA) and a 10% increase in employment compared to 2014, the Centre said.