Equitable Testing and Evaluation of Marine Energy Extraction Devices in terms of Performance, Cost and Environmental Impact

Abstract

The EquiMar project has now finished. All the publicly available outputs can be downloaded from these wiki pages, the EquiMar Protocols may be found here, and there are some marine energy videos available on our YouTube channel.

The EquiMar project was funded by the European Commission as part of its 7th Framework programme under the Energy topic (see http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html for more information). It is a collaborative research and development project involving a consortium of 23 partners and ran for three years from the 15th of April 2008 to the 14th of April 2011.

The aim of EquiMar was to deliver a suite of protocols for the equitable evaluation of marine energy converters (based on either tidal or wave energy). These protocols have harmonised testing and evaluation procedures across the wide variety of devices presently available with the aim of accelerating adoption though technology matching and improved understanding of the environmental and economic impacts associated with the deployment of arrays of devices. EquiMar has assessed devices through a suite of protocols covering site selection, device engineering design, the scaling up of designs, the deployment of arrays of devices, the environmental impact, in terms of both biological & coastal processes, and economic issues. The series of protocols has be developed through a robust, auditable process and disseminated to the wider community. Results from the EquiMar project will establish a sound base for future marine energy standards. The project had a formal liaison with IEC TC 114 and many of the protocol authors are technical experts on the teams developing individual standards.

Project Deliverables