OPIN-Ocean Power Innovation Network

The basic premise of OPIN is to encourage both cross-sectoral and cross-regional collaboration for Offshore Renewable Energy SMEs and associate partners (research organizations, large companies, public institutions).

OPIN is a 3-year initiative, running from 2019 to 2021. The project has a total project budget of €2.6M, with €1.5M in financial support contributed by Interreg North West Europe from the European Research and Development Fund (ERDF).

WEAMEC is one of the partners in this project which includes the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (Coordinator), DMEC (Netherlands), Scottish Enterprise (United Kingdom), Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (United Kingdom), Sirris (Belgium) and Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung. der angewandten Forschung (Germany). Our partner EMC2 facilitated the connection with the consortium during the project development.

OPIN WILL ENCOURAGE cross-sectoral and cross-regional collaboration

• Cross-sectoral collaboration will bring already proven expertise, capabilities and products from other sectors (oil and gas, offshore wind, maritime, etc.) into the offshore renewable sector. This will help to reduce costs and accelerate technology development.
• Cross-regional collaboration will bring interactions between companies from regions with ocean energy expertise and potential collaborators from regions that are world leaders in other technology fields (offshore wind energy, oil and gas, aerospace, automotive and manufacturing). The network will provide a mechanism to transfer expertise between these regions, addressing the disparities in innovation and economic development across North West Europe.

The scope of the OPIN project includes:

• wave, tidal stream, floating offshore wind and hybrid offshore renewable energy systems;
• subsystems, components, materials, enabling technologies, installation, operations and maintenance, decommissioning, related processes and services; and
• energy systems and storage solutions, to enable integration of ocean energy.

WEAMEC is coordinating the establishment of a EUROPEAN SME network

Within OPIN, WEAMEC is responsible for creating and managing a European network of SMEs which work or could work in the MRE sector.  This network will be open to SMEs, but also to associate members (research organizations, large companies, public organizations) to encourage cross-sector interaction to develop European projects and reinforce international presence.
 

• Learn more: www.weamec.fr/en/projects/opin/