Laboratory testing and knowledge transfer for the development of sustainable strategies for marine energy harvesting

The development of marine energy technologies requires the use of specialized infrastructure to test and optimize energy harnessing devices in operation conditions as close to the real ones as possible. It is desirable to have access to the more advanced equipment, to large marine conditions data series and other tools in order to simulate sea conditions and analyze the response of the devices to them. Research, then, is essential to the future evolution of renewable energy industry, specifically to assist the developers at early TRLs to continue with their technology development pathway. Only by proving the devices performance under real sea environment, can developers truly progress to commercial projects. In turn, verified performance data will build confidence amongst the investment community and a global clean energy market could be set. The general objective of this proposal is to numerically and physically test marine energy devices to move them from TRL 2-3 to TRL 3-4.