The FORESEA (Funding Ocean Energy through Strategic European Action) programme launched its 5th call for proposals on Monday.
FORESEA is an €11 million project which helps to bring offshore renewable energy technologies to market by offering free access to a network of test centres: EMEC (UK), DMEC (NL), SEM REV (FR) and SmartBay (IE).
The call aims to help developers of offshore low carbon technologies to test their products or services in real sea environments.
This end-of-project call has been launched due to continued demand for support of real-sea operations and demonstration projects from offshore technology developers and supply chain companies. Furthermore, this final call will help bridge the gap between FORESEA and a potential follow-up project, FORESEA said.
The 5th FORESEA call for proposals is open until January 25, 2019.
Successful applicants must be able to test technologies during 2019, as FORESEA support for accessing the test facilities will end in December 2019.
Nic Wallet , programme manager at EMEC, said: “FORESEA has been very successful in supporting ocean energy technologies to test at sea across North West Europe. To date, 19 technologies have successfully deployed, twelve of which have already completed their testing programme under FORESEA.
“A particular highlight so far has been Orbital Marine Power clocking up over 3 GWh of electricity within one year of testing at EMEC’s Fall of Warness tidal test site. This is a massive achievement for the tidal energy industry.
“We’ve seen a diverse range of technologies demonstrated through the programme, including wave, tidal and wind energy, as well as underwater data centres, biofouling solutions, acoustic monitoring, and forensic decommissioning.
“With less than a year left before the end of the project, we want to ensure that we wring as much value out of FORESEA as we can for the benefit of this nascent sector. Delivering results through this final call will prove challenging due to time constraints but we are confident that many developers are ready to test innovative technologies. They only need proper support to keep moving the industry forward. I therefore urge any developer or supplier considering real-sea demonstration in 2019 to give us a call.”