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. 

In addition to the PAMEC 2024 Conference Program, January 22-24, PAMEC in partnership with key partners is hosting several workshops prior to the conference from January 19 & 20. Attendance is free to all delegates.

Marine energy is defined as the energy harvested from the movement of water in the oceans or large rivers and from ocean gradients. As marine energy project deployments are increasing around the world, there is a need to monitor for potential effects on the marine environment. 

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.

The Portal and Repository for Information on Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMRE) team is hosting a workshop at the Ocean Renewable Energy Conference (OREC 2023) in Portland, Oregon, U.S. on 21 June 2023 from 10:45am-12:00pm PT. This workshop will introduce and update users to three key applications and uses of data around marine energy. 

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.

The Portal and Repository for Information on Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMRE) recently hosted a two-hour workshop focused on geospatial and permitting and licensing tools for U.S. marine energy projects. The workshop consisted of three presentations on the Marine Energy Environmental Toolkit for Permitting and Licensing, the Marine Energy Atlas and other geospatial data within PRIMRE, and PRIMRE capabilities to support marine energy projects.

On behalf of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO), and in collaboration with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) hosted a virtual workshop in December 2022 to gather feedback on noise reduction strategies for the installation of fixed-bottom offshore wind turbines to minimize the environmental effects of offshore wind development.

On behalf of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO), and in collaboration with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) hosted a virtual workshop in December 2022 to gather feedback on noise reduction strategies for the installation of fixed-bottom offshore wind turbines to minimize the environmental effects of offshore wind development.

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.

The purpose of the workshop was to provide an overview of PRIMRE and the main knowledge hubs that are supported within PRIMRE: MHK Data Repository, Tethys, and Tethys Engineering.

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.

The EIMR (Environmental Impacts of Marine Renewables) conference was held April 24 - 27 2018 at different sites across the Scottish Highlands and Islands region, UK. Most presentations are archived here.

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.

This workshop was held before the CWW conference in Portugal to gather information for the next three WREN white papers: Risk-Based Management; Cumulative Effects Assessment; and Green versus Green. A survey was prepared by the three white paper teams and formulated by PNNL and sent to workshop participants after the workshop.

This workshop was led by Annex IV and ORJIP to examine the data and information needed to permit MRE devices and arrays. The workshop was held at the conclusion of the EWTEC in Cork, Ireland. Prior to the workshop, registered participants were sent a set of suggested data types needed for permitting. With the help of guest speakers from Scotland and Canada, the stage was set for breakout groups to discuss the necessary approaches and outcomes of collecting and applying social and economic data for regulatory processes.

This workshop was led by ORJIP and Annex IV and focused on management measures for ensuring that permitting of MRE devices could move forward in the face of uncertainty. Prior to the workshop, a list of management measures associated with specific interactions of MRE devices with the marine environment was circulated to the participants. Twenty-six invited participants, including researchers, regulators, and developers, spent the day examining and contributing to the management measures that are available to the industry and regulators.

This workshop was held as an integral part of the Ocean Renewable Energy Conference, hosted by the Oregon Wave Energy Trust and the Pacific Ocean Energy Trust, to highlight the publication of two documents that address potential environmental effects from marine renewable energy development, and that are integral to understanding how the region can move forward with permitting MRE development.

A seminar was held in conjunction with the Energy Show 2016, highlighting work associated with the WREN project, whose goal is to facilitate international collaboration that advances global understanding of environmental effects of offshore and land-based wind energy development.

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 workshop shared the outline of the 2016 State of the Science report with the research community at the European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference (EWTEC) and gathered input on key marine energy environmental topics. The State of the Science report is being written to document our collection understanding in 2016, and will be available for public comment in February 2016.

This conference session was the culmination of work sponsorred by NERC - DEFRA, in support of environmental investigations into marine renewable energy development. Presentations on research projects, technology development, and knowledge exchange activities are presented.

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.

The EIMR (Environmental Impacts of Marine Renewables) conference was held April 30 - May 1 2014 on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides, Scotland, UK at the An Lanntair Arts Centre in Stornoway. The presentations are archived here. Annex IV was a sponsor of the conference.

This one day workshop was held in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, UK, in conjunction with the EIMR conference, to explore best practices for determining monitoring needs around wave and tidal energy converters, focusing on four key interactions of animals with devices: collision; attraction; avoidance/barrier effects; and mooring line interactions.

This two-day workshop allowed invited participants to share their expertise in environmental monitoring instrumentation, discuss experiences with instrumentation to study environmental changes around wave and tidal converters, and identify approaches to closing high priority gaps in monitoring capabilities.

Experts came together to share new research developments on environmental effects of marine renewable energy, inclduing such topics as: baseline assessments and post-installation monitoring; instrumentation for monitoring; modeling, laboratory studies and field experiments; and data synthesis and dissemination.

This workshop was held September 27-28, 2010 in Dublin, Ireland (Clontorf Castle Hotel) to kick off the Annex IV work on environmental effects of marine renewable energy. The workshop brought 58 technical experts from 8 nations to provide input on environmental effects.

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.

This workshop brought together researchers from many nations to evaluate the environmental effects of tidal energy development, focused around defining and evaluating stressors and receptors at the pilot and commercial scale of marine renewable energy development.

This workshop developed an initial assessment of the potential effects of wave energy development in the Oregon’s coastal ocean, developing a general conceptual framework of physical and biological relationships that can be applied to assess both specific wave energy projects and cumulative effects of multiple projects.