Key trends and statistics 2018

Ocean Energy Europe has published its annual statistics on the developments of the ocean energy sector.

The report shows that Europe continues to lead the world in ocean energy deployments. In 2018, European tidal stream installations reached 26.8MW, and wave energy installations 11.3MW.

Europe remains the world leader in wave energy installations, but the rest of the world is catching up in tidal stream: tidal power installations outside Europe increased from zero in 2015 to a total of 6.7MW between 2016 and 2018.

To stay out in front and get projects over the line, the European sector needs revenue support at national level. Ocean Energy Europe’s CEO, Rémi Gruet, emphasised the importance of such incentives. “The power, and learnings, produced by ocean energy technologies in recent years clearly show that it is possible to generate large quantities of electricity from the sea. What we now need to reach industrialisation is revenue support – just like other renewables, and indeed fossil fuels, have also received.”

Tidal stream technology is now proving itself as a reliable and predictable source of energy. After a decade of steadily increasing generation, power production has shifted up a gear in the past two years and produced record volumes of electricity last year. Since 2013, 34 gigawatt-hours of electricity has been produced by tidal stream in Europe – enough to power more than 9,000 homes over the same period.

Wave energy is also set to continue its promising development: the latest wave energy projects to hit the water are proving that these devices are surviving well in harsh conditions, paving the way for larger, more powerful versions in 2019.