Tracking report
Renewable Power
More efforts needed

Lead authors
Piotr Bojek
Contributors
Heymi Bahar
IEA (2021), Ocean Power, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/ocean-power
Electricity generation from marine technologies increased an estimated 33% in 2020, mainly owing to Denmark’s capacity increase of 200 MW. However, marine power’s status remains “not on track” because it is far from being aligned with the Net Zero Scenario’s sustained annual growth of 33% through 2030, which is not expected to be achieved in the years ahead. Such generation growth would require an average 1 GW of capacity additions annually until 2030.
While advanced marine projects of 10 kW to 1 MW for power generation have been deployed (mostly in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, China and, recently, Denmark), these demonstration and small commercial projects remain expensive because the economies of scale necessary for significant cost reductions have not yet been realised.
Marine technologies hold great potential, but additional policy support for RD&D is needed to enable the cost reductions that come with the commissioning of larger commercial plants.
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), of temperature differences and salt concentrations, and of technologies related to desalination.
Thank you for subscribing. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link at the bottom of any IEA newsletter.