I am pleased to bring to your attention this new international research and development programme
on Ocean Energy Systems.
The oceans contain an enormous source of energy that can be exploited contributing in a sustainable manner to meet the increasingly global energy demand. The most developed conversion systems concern tidal energy, ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), ocean waves and marine currents. This IEA-OES programme focuses on ocean waves and marine currents technologies as a starting option since these are the technologies that have deserved most attention during the last 15 years. However, their development is still at prototype stage.
The potential of ocean waves and marine currents is estimated to be 1-10 TW and 5 TW, respectively, which is of the order of the present global electrical energy consumption. Research and development on wave energy technologies started 30 years ago. Together with marine currents, they have been the object of the greatest R&D effort in about half of the IEA member-countries and in other countries including China, India and Mexico. This has been supported by national and regional R&D programmes and other support measures, and investment by an emerging industry.
