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Tracking Ocean Power 2020

Not on track
Tracking report — June 2020
Authors and contributors
Jamie Davies Bcpavl49gsu Unsplash

About this report

Electricity generation from marine technologies increased an estimated 13% in 2019, which is significantly above the levels of the previous three years. Nevertheless, this technology needs to be deployed even more rapidly to get on track with the SDS, which requires much higher annual growth of 23% through 2030. Policies promoting R&D are needed to achieve further cost reductions and large-scale development.

Ocean power generation in the Sustainable Development Scenario, 2000-2030

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Tracking progress

Electricity generation from marine technologies increased an estimated 13% in 2019. However, the tracking status of marine power remains “not on track” because it is far from being aligned with the Sustainable Development Scenario (SDS), which requires much higher annual growth of 23% through 2030.

Advanced marine projects for power generation ranging from 10 kW to 1 MW have been deployed mostly in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and China. However, these demonstration and small commercial projects remain expensive and have not yet achieved the economies of scale necessary for significant cost reductions.

Marine technologies hold great potential, but additional policy support is needed for RD&D to enable the cost reductions that come with the commissioning of larger commercial plants.

Resources

Renewables 2019 is the IEA market analysis and forecast for renewable energy and technologies for 2019 24. It presents global renewable energy trends and developments in the electricity, heat and transport sectors.

The IEA Ocean Energy Systems Technology Collaboration Programme aims to accelerate the viability, uptake and acceptance of ocean energy systems. Activities includes analysis of technologies to generate electricity from ocean movements (waves, swells, tides and currents), temperature differences and salt concentrations, and technologies related to desalination.