Key Features
The EuropeWave PCP aims to accelerate the design, development, and demonstration of cost-effective wave energy converter (WEC) systems to produce clean electricity, advance promising designs for wave energy converter systems.
Programme: European Union
Award: Share of up to €16.3 million
Opens: 1st Jul 2021
Closes: 1st Oct 2021
This contract notice invites interested operators to submit tenders for the EuropeWave pre-commercial procurement (PCP).
This Request for Tender is the first and only open call to companies active in the wave energy sector. Only projects that are accepted in this Request for Tender will be eligible to continue to the later stages of the programme.
The EuropeWave PCP aims to accelerate the design, development, and demonstration of cost-effective wave energy converter (WEC) systems to produce clean electricity, advance promising designs for wave energy converter systems to a point from which they are ready to proceed to a first of a kind commercial-scale design and testing programme and commercial exploitation through other national/regional programmes and/or private sector investment.
The main technical challenges to be addressed may be expressed in terms of:
– Performance – obtain quantitative evidence of power capture and conversion capability and increase confidence in yield predictions from simulations.
– Survivability – demonstrate effective survival strategies.
– Availability – demonstrate levels of availability through reliable prototype operation.
– Affordability – increase confidence in estimations of the technology costs (capital and operational) and the requirements to achieve a LCOE which is competitive in the target market.
The culmination of the EuropeWave PCP programme (Phase 3) will see prototypes, at substantial scale and with fully representative subsystems, deployed at the open-water facilities of the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Scotland and the Biscay Marine Energy Platform (BiMEP) in the Basque Country and operated for a minimum period to demonstrate device performance, reliability and cost.
Physical model testing in earlier phases is expected to take place in Instituto de Hidráulica Ambiental de Cantabria (IHC) and FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility (FloWave).
The overarching challenge: The design, development, and demonstration of cost-effective wave energy converter systems for electrical power production that can survive in the harsh and unpredictable ocean environment.
The EuropeWave PCP challenge: To advance promising wave energy converter systems to a point from which they can be developed to commercial exploitation through other national/regional programmes and/or private sector investment.
This industrial development process creates a ‘funnel’ via a multi-stage funding programme.
At the start, developers can apply for support via an open call. In subsequent stages, the most promising projects are selected to continue into the next round, concentrating the remaining funding on the best-performing technologies. The final round will be demonstrated in Basque and Scottish open waters at the end of the programme.
This model, first implemented in Scotland by WES, is an alternative approach to conventional R&D funding. It optimises public spending on wave energy innovation by providing up to 100% funding in priority areas that need improved solutions. In EuropeWave, the focus is on scale prototypes, off-grid applications and mooring systems.
Our team are available to discuss your innovative business, your project ideas and how we can help you to write a successful application for this Grant Funding opportunity.
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