Featured Conferences and Workshops for Marine and Wind Energy and the Environment

Most research and monitoring for marine energy devices has sought to understand effects that will drive permitting (consenting) and licensing decisions for large (grid-scale) machines. However, we know that many near term and likely long term uses of marine energy will be to power remote coastal and island communities, and for power at sea for offshore aquaculture, ocean observations and navigation markers, and other uses.

Ocean Energy Systems (OES) and the U.S. Portal and Repository for Information on Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMRE) team hosted the 4th International Marine Energy Data Sharing Workshop online on 8 May 2024 from 3:00-5:00 PM UTC. 

Past workshops featured presentations on marine energy data resources available around the world (e.g., databases, portals, tools) and small group discussions focused on the value of data sharing, barriers to data sharing, and opportunities to overcome those barriers. 

Ocean Energy Systems-Environmental and Aquatera hosted a workshop as part of the European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference on Wednesday September 6 from 4:00 to 5:30pm CEST on “Environmental monitoring for marine energy – instrumentation for devices and arrays”.

As marine energy project deployments are increasing around the world, there is a need to monitor for potential effects on the marine environment. Virtually all permitting and licensing agreements require environmental monitoring, but few are explicit about how, when, and where monitoring must take place.

You are kindly invited to participate in a virtual, invite-only workshop on international marine energy data sharing.

After two successful Ocean Energy Systems (OES) workshops on Marine Energy Data Sharing in 2021 and 2022, the U.S.-based Portal and Repository for Information on Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMRE) team is hosting, in collaboration with OES, a third online workshop on 2 May 2023 from 3:00-5:00 PM UTC.

This workshop was hosted by OES-Environmental to engage with international regulators to present the Guidance Documents for Risk Retirement and solicit feedback.

This workshop, hosted by Ocean Energy Systems (OES)-Environmental and Offshore Renewables Joint Industry Programme (ORJIP) Ocean Energy, aimed to identify the key components of effective and efficient programs for environmental monitoring around tidal and wave devices, explore whether there are elements that could be standardized among projects worldwide, and discuss possible funding mechanisms to carry out needed research into techniques and outcomes to facilitate and reduce monitoring requirements and de-risk consenting and licensing processes as the industry scales up.

On behalf of Ocean Energy Systems (OES) and the US Department of Energy, the PRIMRE (Portal and Repository for Information on Marine Renewable Energy) team a second international workshop to explore the potential for sharing marine energy data, following a successful first workshop in 2020.

This workshop was held by OES-Environmental to engage with the United States regulatory community to demonstrate and review the Guidance Documents for Risk Retirement.

As part of the Pacific Ocean Energy Trust's Ocean Renewable Energy Conference (OREC 2021), OES-Environmental hosted a free, online workshop on Friday, September 24, 2021 from 10:30am-12:30pm PDT. 

OES-Environmental hosted a workshop as part of the Chile Riding the Blue Wave International Conference on the environmental effects of marine renewable energy and considerations from the Chilean perspective.

OES-Environmental and ORJIP Ocean Energy held a two-part online workshop to bring together experts and marine energy practitioners for a structured discussion on the state of knowledge of the processes of avoidance, evasion, and collision. This workshop was focused on marine mammals.

OES-Environmental and ORJIP Ocean Energy held a two-part online workshop to bring together experts and marine energy practitioners for a structured discussion on the state of knowledge of the processes of avoidance, evasion, and collision. This workshop was focused on fish.

OES-Environmental and ORJIP held a workshop in Australia that presented the state of the science on environmental effects of marine renewable energy (MRE) and discussed risk retirement for key environmental effects of MRE devices on marine animals and the marine environment, focusing on risk retirement for underwater noise and EMF.

OES-Environmental held a workshop on retiring risks of effects on marine animals from underwater noise from marine energy devices. This workshop was held in Portland, Oregon (USA) as part of OREC 2019.

This workshop was led by OES-Environmental and ORJIP to examine pathways for determining data needs, monitoring requirements, and possible mitigation measures for working towards retiring risks of EMF and underwater noise for consenting small installations of tidal turbines and wave energy converters. the workshop was held and the collusion of EWTEC in Napoli, Italy. Prior to the workshop, registered participants were asked to read documents that explained the process of the risk retirement pathway, the process of the risk retirement pathway, and studies related to the underwater noise and electromagnetic field (EMF) stressors.

Annex IV held a workshop in Edinburgh, UK for a group of marine renewable energy stakeholders to assess the status of addressing collision risk from tidal and river turbines and develop project plans to help manage the risks. The State of the Science pertaining to marine mammals and fish, and results from different integrated monitoring systems and observations from deployed devices were presented.

This workshop was held around the International Conference on Ocean Energy (ICOE) and brought together marine renewable energy (MRE) researchers, developers, and regulators to discuss ways to “transfer” data, information, and learning on environmental effects from early MRE projects to extend learning from these early projects and to reduce the high costs of environmental monitoring and accelerate consenting for future projects.

This workshop was held around the Environmental Interactions of Marine Renewables (EIMR) 2018 Conference in Kirkwall, Orkney. This workshop built on the Exploring the State of Understanding and Practice used to Assess Social and Economic Risks and Benefits of Marine Renewable Energy Development Workshop held around the EWTEC conference in Cork, Ireland in August 2017 with the aim to bring together regulators, stakeholders, industry, and researchers to examine the social and economic effects and benefits of MRE developments and how these should best be considered during the consenting process for projects, as well as at a higher strategic level.

A one-day workshop was held in Edinburgh, Scotland, bringing together regulators, marine energy researchers and industry representatives, to identify the key challenges within the consenting process regarding collision risk for marine wildlife with tidal turbines and to produce a coordinated action plan.

This one-day workshop was held in Wolfville Nova Scotia, bringing together regulators, marine energy researchers, and industry representatives, to determine what data are needed by regulators, and what data can resaonably be collected by researchers, to assist with siting and permitting (consenting) or marine energy devices.

This workshop was held October 15, 2012 in Dublin, Ireland (Dublin Convention Centre). The meeting was held under the International Energy Agency's implementing agreement on Ocean Energy Systems and collaboration with the Department of Energy. The workshop brought 55 technical experts from 9 nations to provide input on Annex IV activities.