A new €45m marine energy project is aiming to demonstrate multi-source offshore developments across Europe by 2025.
The European SCalable Offshore Renewable Energy Sources (EU-Scores) project includes CorPower Ocean and Oceans of Energy, as well as major developers RWE, EDP, Enel Green Power, Simply Blue Group and research institutions.
The project is coordinated by Dutch Marine Energy Centre (DMEC).
EU-Scores will build a wave energy array in Portugal co-located with an offshore wind farm and an offshore solar PV system in Belgium co-located with a bottom fixed wind farm.
The project will run until August 2025 supported by €34.8m in funding from the European Green Deal in the last Horizon 2020 call.
The demos aim to showcase the benefits of more consistent power output harnessing complementary power sources including waves, wind and sun, creating a more resilient and stable power system, higher capacity factors and a lower total cost of the power system.
Energy system modelling to quantify the value of the combined offshore energy sources will be led by LUT University.
The demos will also aim to prove how the increased power output and capacity installed per km squared will reduce the amount of marine space needed, thereby leaving more space for aquaculture, fisheries, shipping routes and environmentally protected zones.
Additional benefits achieved by co-using critical electrical infrastructures and exploring advanced operation and maintenance methodologies supported by innovative autonomous systems will further lower the costs per MWh, the project said.
CorPower Ocean commercial director Kevin Rebenius said: “We are delighted to be part of this truly pan European initiative addressing one of the most important topics of our time, implementing new solutions to accelerate the transition to 100% clean energy.
“We see great value in showcasing the highly consistent and complementary power profile of wave energy, and how this can be combined with wind and solar to deliver a more stable and predictable electricity system based purely on renewables.
“By generating electricity also when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine, wave energy can help fill the gaps and thereby become an important part of the mix to stabilise future electricity system.”