The European Commission has selected two new projects for funding under the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) which will tackle the corrosion on offshore platforms and look into the development of multi-use offshore platforms.
The first project, the North Sea Solutions for Innovation in Corrosion for Energy (NeSSIE), seeks to deliver new business and investment opportunities in corrosion solutions and new materials for offshore energy installations.
The project aims to draw on North Sea region expertise in traditional offshore sectors such as oil and gas and shipbuilding in order to develop solutions for emerging opportunities in offshore renewable energy sources including wave, tidal and offshore wind energy.
The project will be undertaken jointly by participants from the UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Sweden.
The second project, Enabling Technologies and Roadmaps for Offshore Platform Innovation (ENTROPI), aims to advance Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) along the value chain to accelerate the deployment of multi-use offshore platforms, particularly for renewables and aquaculture.
Focusing on the Atlantic sea basin, the project will develop the investment case for 3 bankable demonstration projects, each supported by a public-private partnership. The project will be carried out by the UK, France, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain.
These new ‘Blue technology’ projects are expected to help bring research results faster to the market. Grant agreements are being prepared for signature by April 2017.
Projects selected under the Blue technology call for proposals will develop joint roadmaps and bankable demonstration projects in the Atlantic and the North Sea in order to coordinate investments for innovation in a specific high potential blue growth technology, domain or value chain.
The two new projects share a total budget of about EUR 2 million with one more project related to aquaculture.