JRC Report: Ocean Energy in the European Union

Photo by Silas Baisch on Unsplash

The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has published a new report on the status of the ocean energy sector in the European Union. The report highlights the fast progress of wave and tidal technologies in the last decade.

The report finds that EU companies continue to lead the ocean energy market, with the largest share of developers based in EU Member States. The EU also leads the R&D investments, with almost €300m invested in wave and tidal energy projects through the EU’s R&D funding programmes Horizon 2020 and its predecessor the 7th Framework Programme.

But the rest of the world seems to be catching up. China is now leading the sector having triple the amount of private investment compared to the EU.

Installed capacity is growing and a pipeline of several projects exists. However, to reach the potential of providing 10% of the EU’s energy needs, more action is needed, the report concludes.