THE TIME TO INVEST IN OCEAN ENERGY IS NOW

(Maria Damanaki, Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries)

" It has become clear over the past years that our seas and oceans can generate huge economic growth and create jobs, much needed in these times. That is why we have been working for the past five years on our Blue Growth strategy to foster sustainable blue economy. Ocean energy is part of this strategy. It is a very promising sector, capable to exploit an indigenous, predictable, safe source of clean energy.

Earlier this year, in April, we launched an Action plan on blue energy. Part of it is the creation of the Ocean Energy Forum, gathering all stakeholders to cooperate and elaborate the further development of the sector.

This Wednesday I was proud to take part in the very first high-level meeting of this Ocean Energy Forum. Together with EU Ministers and stakeholders we discussed the ways of overcoming the challenges of ocean energy but also the progress made.

I am convinced the time is now.

I told the stakeholders I met on Wednesday to “get ready”. We have set up a good basis for ocean energy, very much appreciated after the Ukrainian conflict. It is clear that renewable energy is the future the EU wants to invest in. There is an open door for blue energy to become an EU success story."

Maria Damanaki's blog  
http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/damanaki/3/10/14

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Maritime surveillance: Joining forces with Member States for safer seas and oceans

European Commission, Press release, Brussels, 8 July 2014:

The European Commission today took a further step towards more effective and cost-efficient surveillance of European Seas. By bringing together surveillance data from civil and military authorities like coast guards, navies, traffic monitoring, environmental and pollution monitoring, fisheries and border control, duplication of work can be avoided and savings of up to €400 million per year can be made.

Increased cooperation and sharing of data would help cope more efficiently with real time events at sea such as accidents, pollution incidents, crime or security threats. CISE, the Common Information Sharing Environment for the maritime domain, aims at making all the relevant actors come together and share data. CISE is one of the building blocks of the recently adopted European Maritime Security Strategy. 

Maria Damanaki, Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, said: “Sustainable economic growth within the maritime sector can only be ensured if our seas and oceans are safe and secure. CISE aims to make sure that all involved maritime surveillance actors have a complete picture of all events at sea. Sharing such information is key to avoid duplication in collection of data and for the use of patrol ships, planes, helicopters or satellites in the same sea areas. Today, about 40% of information is collected several times and 40% to 80% of information is not shared amongst the interested users. We cannot afford such a waste of efforts and money". 

Today's Communication by the Commission presents the good progress made at EU and national level since the CISE roadmap was elaborated in 2010 and the strong commitment of all actors in this field. It also proposes guidance and priorities for further action both at national and EU levels. Main focus should be to further enhance information exchange – in particular between civil and military authorities, to better interconnect existing maritime surveillance systems and make them inter-operational. This will bring increased efficiency, quality, responsiveness and co-ordination of maritime surveillance operations in EU waters as well as any other geographical area where the EU has a vital interest. It will help create a safer investment climate for blue growth and enhance the prosperity and security of EU citizens.

In the near future, the Commission intends to launch a project under the EU's 7th Framework Programme for Research in order to test Maritime CISE on a large scale. .........................http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-782_en.htm?locale=en

8/7/14

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BLUE ENERGY: THE TIDE IS TURNING

The power of waves

Until today, despite the considerable investment, very little electricity has been generated using ocean power anywhere in the world. But the several hundreds international experts and world-leading companies in ocean energy that gathered in Dublin last week, at the 4th International Conference on Ocean Energy  confirm that the tide is turning.
And right so: waves, tides and currents can provide a dependable supply of clean energy, which could greatly help to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and European greenhouse gas emissions by about 65 Mt CO2 in 2020.

And more: in 2011, 35.000 people were directly and indirectly employed across Europe in offshore wind: we forecast that this number will grow to 170.000 by 2020 and to 300.000 by 2030! Thanks to its growth potential, ‘Blue energy’ can revitalise coastal communities and give birth to new economic realities.
But other sources of marine energy are not yet at the same stage of development: for wave and tidal power and for ocean thermal energy conversion, the challenge is to reduce technology costs to accelerate commercialisation and invest in grid connections and transmission capacity.
EU measures can be crucial in creating confidence to invest. EU funding programmes have provided over € 80 million since 2002 to support research and development into marine energy technologies. Hundreds of projects have tested a variety of technologies and several of them are showing excellent results: in the Basque Country, the Mutriku wave power plant consists of 16 turbines of 18.5kW each, with an estimated overall power of 296kW.  Wave Star in Denmark has received funding to upscale and demonstrate a 500kW wave power unit in the North Sea. The La Rance Power Station in France, with capacity of 240MW, is the second largest tidal barrage plant in the world.
EU industry is a world leader in blue energy and now a last effort is needed to provide investor confidence and support the scale-up of demonstration projects, so that we will be able to harness the power of the sea to create Blue Growth.
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http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/damanaki/blue-energy-the-tide-is-turning/#more-673