Marine Energy Wales Conference 2024
On the 13th and 14th of March, Swansea Arena saw the return of the Marine Energy Wales conference. This 2-day event sought to bring together a wide range of industry leaders, academics, and innovators to encourage discussion about the future of marine renewable energy in Wales. Exo Engineering were incredibly grateful to attend alongside so many other brilliant organisations who are all so passionate about supporting Wales’s ambition to harness renewable energy.
Will Melhuish was invited to contribute to the discussion around achieving Environmental Gain alongside marine renewable energy generation. One of the ways we can do this is by adopting nature-inclusive designs at marine energy sites. The September 2023 deployment of our ExoReef units at one of the META sites is helping to support the testing our our nature-inclusive solutions, evidencing the positive impact on biodiversity at the deployment site.
Wales is perfectly placed to take advantage of the abundant potential for offshore marine renewable energy generation. Many organisations are working hard to do just this, but some significant barriers stand in the way. Marine Energy Wales and the Pembrokeshire Coastal Forum are helping to overcome complex process of permit and licence applications with their pre-consented Marine Energy Test Areas (META). These areas facilitate the testing of new, innovative solutions, streamlining the testing process and hopefully getting them to market quicker. Exo Engineering are using these sites to test a variety of our Eco-Reef units, aimed at enhancing biodiversity whilst protecting crucial offshore infrastructure such as cable routes and turbine foundations from erosive scour.
Another significant barrier to the adoption of renewable energy is the electricity grid. If we are to continue progressing to meet out net-zero ambitions, significant investment needs to be made to improve our electricity grid to make it compatible with growing renewable energy generation. By taking a holistic approach to improving the grid, we can engage with local communities to help them realise the benefits and necessity for expanding grid infrastructure, and encourage the investment needed to fund these improvements.
We want to say a big thank you to Marine Energy Wales for having us, to all of those involved with organising the conference, and to all of the attendees who took the time to speak with us.