Considerations on future emerging technologies in the ocean energy sector

The Ocean Energy Sector has seen remarkable advancements in the past two decades, but ultimately the oceans remain the next energy frontier. This paper combines the Authors’ review of the latest European Commission reports, including the outcomes of the 2018 JRC workshop of Future Emerging Technologies in the Ocean Energy Sector. The results of the analysis indicate a higher convergence of Tidal sector compared to Wave sector and this, in the Authors’ view, is the consequence, not the cause, of the higher knowledge transfer of the first compared to the former. Lack of convergence negatively influences the effective engagement of a supply chain. Therefore, we cannot but help observing and promoting a very distinctive path for Wave and Tidal energy evolution. Despite these internal differences, the Sector is generally relatively young and almost everything can be considered a Future Emerging Technology. Consequently, we identify “Technology Families” that include subsystems, components, parts, used by different developers and ocean energy devices and we highlight the ones that propose a solution with wider application across the Sector.