EU-backed SafeWAVE project, short for Streamlining the Assessment of Environmental Effects of Wave Energy, has been prolonged until June 2024. The decision to extend the project was revealed on March 20, stating it will enable SafeWave to make more progress in utilizing the abundant marine renewable energy resources of the Atlantic seaboard.
The project works to improve knowledge of the environmental effects and risks of wave energy through the collection, processing, analysis, and sharing of environmental data around devices operating at sea and modeling of cumulative impacts of future larger-scale deployments.
The project consortium, led by AZTI, includes a multidisciplinary team of partners bringing together technology device developers (BiMEP, Wello, CorPower Ocean, and GEPS Techno), consultants, and researchers (WavEC, CTN, AZTI, RTSYS, UCC, and Ecole Centrale) and data managers (Hidromod).
The SafeWAVE project builds on the results of the WESE project completed in 2021. Its final aim is to develop a ‘Public Education and Engagement Strategy’ collaboratively with coastal communities in France, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, and demonstrate a framework for education and public engagement for marine renewable energies.
Launched in February 2021, the project started collecting environmental data around GEPS Techno’s wave and solar energy hybrid WAVEGEM at the SEM-REV test site in France in July 2021.