Accelerating the Deployment of Offshore Renewable Energy Technologies (ADORET): Presentation, Findings and Recommendations

Abstract

The outcome of the ADORET project, commissioned by the International Energy Agency Implementing Agreement for Renewable Energy Technology Deployment (IEA-RETD), and executed by Mott MacDonald, will be presented. Globally, offshore renewable energy is a burgeoning industry which has the potential to grow rapidly in a number of countries. While tidal and wave energy is at an earlier stage of development with technology demonstrations being pursued in many locations worldwide, the offshore wind industry is already considered mature. The overall objective of the ADORET project is to assist policy makers and project developers by providing them a better understanding of the specifics of offshore renewable energy (ORE) technologies and to give them practical guidelines in how to foster their deployment. The project has an international perspective, focusing on the 11 IEA-RETD members as well as 7 additional countries. In an introductory phase, the project has delivered a brief of the current status of advancement of ORE technologies. It then highlighted the available resources, and gave an overview of policies in place and deployment to date. In a second phase, the economics and financing of ORE projects have been examined. The respective maturity levels of technologies have been discussed, as well as capital and operational costs structures. An analysis of commercial and technical risks, and of their impact on the financing costs, has been performed. Mitigation measures can reduce these to an acceptable level. The respective merits and constraints associated to the main financing options available to ORE projects will be presented. An in-depth review of technical and non-technical barriers and challenges to the deployment of ORE technologies has been performed and will be presented. Technical barriers covered included technology and design optimisation, reliability, installation and decommissioning, operation and maintenance, grid connection and integration. Non-technical barriers investigated included environmental, safety, regulatory and licensing, competing uses, skills, supply chain and infrastructures, and financial issues. Examples of country and technology specific barriers are highlighted. In the final part the project, a detailed review of policies in place to promote ORE technologies deployment and of their effectiveness has been performed. Mitigation measures to barriers previously identified are also presented. Based on this analysis, a generic model policy framework is proposed, to be used as a possible template by policy makers in interested countries. Guidelines for project design and development are presented. The full version of the ADORET report and its appendices are shortly to be made available to download at www.iea-retd.org.