The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), based in Orkney, Scotland, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC), based in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska in the USA, to encourage knowledge exchange and joint research activities.

The two organisations originally began working together in 2012, with EMEC providing support on the design, set up and operation of NNMREC’s Pacific Marine Energy Center (PMEC) - a grid-connected marine energy test centre proposed for development off the Pacific Northwest coast of the United States.

Building on this, the signing of this MoU will facilitate cooperation through joint research activities, sharing experiences, and information exchange related to the sustainable global development of marine renewable energy.

Of particular interest to both parties is the development of methods to facilitate environmental studies around marine energy converters. Both organisations are developing integrated monitoring technologies – EMEC’s Integrated Monitoring Pod (IMP), and NNMREC’s intelligent Adaptable Monitoring Package (iAMP) – and working in tandem should reduce costs whilst speeding up development of the systems.

“Developing wave and tidal energy technologies to meet energy demands in a way that is economically viable and environmentally benign is a global challenge: international collaboration is essential to progress with this as efficiently and effectively as possible,” EMEC Technical Manager Elaine Buck, who signed the MoU on behalf of EMEC, said in a statement.