Ifremer | MERiFIC

http://wwz.ifremer.fr/institut (opens in new tab)

French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea

Ifremer, through its research work and expert advice, contributes to knowledge of the oceans and their resources, to monitoring of marine and coastal environments and to the sustainable development of marine activities. To these ends, Ifremer designs and operates tools for observation, experimentation and monitoring, and manages the French oceanographic fleet for the whole scientific community.

IFREMER is a multi-disciplinary institute and is active in various areas related to Renewable Marine Energy. At a national level the institute gives expert advice on environmental impact. Through industrial contracts and national and European collaborations Ifremer is involved in the development of the technology for new marine energy conversion systems, using both experimental and modelling facilities, and participates in the development of protocols for their evaluation.

In addition, Ifremer has been named as Co-ordinator of a new project for an Institute of Excellence for non-carbon energy (IEED),« France Énergies Marines», which aims to develop French competitiveness in renewable marine energy in the areas of offshore wind (fixed and floating), tidal, wave and thermal energy.

Within the MERIFIC project, Ifremer will be mainly involved in the Task devoted to Technology Support and Development. This will include the development of new metocean tools for evaluating resources and system behaviour, as well as the application of protocols developed in previous European projects to island systems.

Concerning technological aspects the complementarities of the expertise and test facilities at Ifremer and the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth will be exploited in order to make a significant contribution to the understanding and modelling of synthetic moorings for marine energy converters.

Although not directly involved, Ifremer is also very interested in the results from the other work packages looking at regulations and best practices.

We anticipate that the results available from the project will be further developed in the future both through projects at Ifremer and within the IEED « France Énergies Marines».

Last, but not least, we are counting on the project to reinforce and consolidate the contacts and collaborations with our English partners, in particular with respect to technological developments and test sites for marine energy conversion systems.