Powered by the ocean

The size of the prize for commercialising ocean energy is huge. In Europe alone, the ocean energy industry plans to deploy 100GW of production capacity by 2050, meeting 10% of electricity demand. That’s enough to meet the daily electricity needs of 94 million households.

Deploying 100GW of ocean energy will also mean creating a new industrial sector based firmly in Europe, and 400,000 skilled jobs all along the supply chain.

Today, European companies are the clear global leaders in ocean energy even though other countries are catching up quickly. Most demonstration projects outside Europe, in Canada and South East Asia use European technology.

This puts our EU companies in prime position to capture a global market estimated to be worth 53€bn annually in 2050.

Over the past decade, OEE members have invested over €1bn in RD&I activities. These investments have created the base of world leading knowledge and expertise needed to build an industry.

In 2016, the world’s first tidal power farms hit the water in the UK, Netherlands, and France. Pre-commercial wave energy, OTEC and salinity gradient farms will soon follow across Europe. Farms are also underway in Canada, Japan, Indonesia, Chile, all with EU technology. Industry take-off is underway.