Abstract
The Ocean Energy European Research Area Network (OCEANERA-NET) is an EU project funded under the 7th Framework Programme and constitutes a collaboration between 15 national and regional funding organisations from 8 EU countries, coordinated by Scottish Enterprise, the regional Economic Development Agency for Lowlands Scotland.
OCEANERA-NET has been set up to facilitate coordination of research in the ocean energy sector across Europe through delivering a series of collaborative programmes including joint transnational calls and other complementary joint activities.
In the frame of Joint Activity 3 (JA.3), the OCEANERA-NET consortium has been delivering a range of activities aimed at engaging and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with the primary objective of increased knowledge sharing to the benefit of the entire industry, thus accelerating the sector’s pace to industrial roll-out. One activity within JA.3 has hence been focused on the analysis of supply chain databases in ocean energy and the compilation of existing information from the countries primarily participating in OCEANERANET into a single comprehensive source. The results from this exercise are presented in this summary report.
Supply chains are complex and dynamic networks linking suppliers with customers. In precommercial sectors, such as ocean energy, building resilient supply chains to service the emerging market is an important component of that sector’s development towards full commercialisation.
Within the OCEANERA-NET member states there are examples of existing and ‘mature’ supply chain models and lists of companies, as well as some embryonic ones. This may reflect the stage of development of ocean energy technology and the market in those member countries. The sector is still at a stage where it is primarily dominated by technology developers with a tendency to cover several parts of the supply chain as part of their research, technology development and innovation (RTDI) activities. However, with some technologies progressing to demonstration and pre-commercial stages, particularly in tidal energy, the establishment of a resilient supply chain is becoming increasingly topical.