Initiative will offer test facilities for marine renewable energy

UCC’s Hydraulics and Maritime Research Centre (HMRC) is leading the ‘MaRINET’ (Marine Renewables Infrastructure Network) scheme, which offers periods of marine renewable energy testing at no cost to participants.

According to a statement, MaRINET supports testing of concepts and devices in areas such as wave energy, tidal energy, offshore-wind energy and the environment, to accelerate Europe-wide development of marine renewable energy.

The funding seeks to remove financial barriers for the first time by enabling companies and research groups to access European testing facilities outside their own country, which is generally not covered under national grant schemes.

The initiative, with at least four calls for applications, runs until 2015 with the first call for applications opening on 1 December 2011. Potential users, who must work in Europe or a country associated to the European FP7 programme, are invited to apply to access this first call.

The network consists of 42 testing facilities at 28 research centres in 12 countries. By linking these marine renewable energy testing facilities and using an agreed testing framework, this initiative now provides a clear path to commercialisation by allowing users to progress their device through each phase of testing.