European Pre-Commercial Procurement Programme for Wave Energy Research &Development

In the past years, Member States and the European Commission have been working closely together to use their public resources via previous Ocean ERA-NET Cofund actions but like to reinforce their cooperation to address the challenge through a different funding instrument. In this European PCP action it is the aim to elevate experience with national public procurement approaches at a European level to bring European Wave Energy Research and Development more efficiently into the direction of commercialization.

The proposed action is to be structured along the following phases:

Preparation phase: The participating users/buyers of R&D service should agree on common performance levels and associated specifications for the wave energy systems. The action should introduce the ocean energy phase gate procedure on a European level.

They will plan the research and the design of actions covering a broad variety of issues. The PCP will consist of several building blocks addressing different sub-challenges. The funding of the participating programme owners (national and/or regional) and the European Union will be used for different stages in the wave energy technology development. The results of phase 1 should lead to calls for tenders (for the procurement of R&D services) which focus on clearly identified technologies which contribute to the development of commercial wave energy devices. The procurement should be also open for developers, researcher organisations which are not located in the participating countries/regions.

The expected outcomes at this stage: 1) completed tender documents, 2) signed joint procurement agreement confirming the collaboration modus including the financial commitment of the buyers group and 3) final confirmation of the lead procurer.

Execution stage: The action will take care for the implementation of the Pre-Commercial Procurement and of the PCP contracts. The results will be shared within the European industry to accelerate technology development and the establishment of guidelines and standards to facilitate the transferability of the knowledge creation. The research and specification work should lead to at least 3 prototypes tested in an environment close to expected performance. At the end of the action at least one of the prototypes should be ready for testing in an operational environment at commercial scale.

Proposals have to describe the jointly identified challenge, indicating how it fits into their mid-to-long term innovation plans, why solutions currently available on the market or under development are not meeting their needs. Activities have to include: (1) networking related to preparation, management and coordination and (2) joint research activities related to the validation of PCP strategy.

The consortium should have at least three legal entities established in different member states or H2020 associated countries. In the consortium the participation of minimum two 'public procurers' is required. Other entities might be considered which can have a clear added value in the preparation and/or execution of the PCP or in coordination and networking activities.

Please see part E of the General Annexes for the specific proposal requirements for PCP actions.

The Commission considers that PCP proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between 15 and 20 million would allow this area to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission a selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

The challenge is the design, development and validation of cost-effective Wave energy convertors that can survive in a harsh and unpredictable ocean environment as the ocean through demand-driven Pre-Commercial Procurement. The challenge is open to proposals seeking to steer wave energy research and development in an effective way at a European level establishing convergence of wave energy technologies and to bring these technologies to the market.

• Convergence of wave energy technologies, acceleration of technology development, proof-of-concept and validation of wave energy technology for the benefit of the wave energy sector and as such improved knowledge transfer.
• Pool resources at national and EU levels dedicated to Research and Development and provide effectively a significant developmental boost of wave energy technology.
• More effective use of public resources for Research and Demonstration.