Wave energy has tremendous potential to make a significant contribution to renewable energy generation in Europe and beyond. While developers work diligently on technology development, their ability to expand commercially may be considerably hindered unless non-technological barriers are addressed in earnest.
In recent years, the European Commission has funded a number of research and demonstration projects that have identified a number of those nontechnological key factors and barriers affecting the future growth of wave energy. Some of the barriers identified are: level of public acceptance, uncertainty about the risk and return of the installations, insurance, problems to obtain auxiliary services (boats, cable installers, undersea works), etc.
WAVEPLAM (WAVe Energy PLAnning and Marketing), a EU project funded under the FP6
Intelligent Europe program has started with an ambitious aim: to develop tools, establish methods and standards, and create conditions to speed up introduction of wave energy onto the European renewable energy market, tackling in advance nontechnological barriers and conditioning factors that may arise when these technologies finally are available for large-scale development.
This paper presents some initial results of the WAVEPLAM project. The non- echnological barriers have been classified, evaluated and assessed in order to know their influence in the future development of wave energy.
Initial considerations on Best Practices are presented, in particular with respect to the approach to authorization and certification procedures for wave energy devices in different countries.
An experience from a developer that has undergone some of the barriers discussed in this paper will be used a case-study. It indicates the level of political, public and financial willing that is required to overcome those barriers in order to allow commercial expansion of ocean energy generation.
