Lead contractor
Wave Energy Scotland Ltd
Overview
Metrics present a measure of success, to support technology development programmes and enable management of competitive innovation calls (such as the Wave Energy Scotland programme) to select the most promising technologies. The main goal of metrics development is to demonstrate success and progress in technology development, allow comparisons across different funding schemes and enable ocean energy technologies to be demonstrated and compared globally.
To gain the full benefit of the ability to measure success and fund the most successful projects, it is imperative to have cross-sector approval of metrics so that everyone has the same measure of success in the ocean energy industry.
Wave Energy Scotland has been involved in international collaboration for 3 reasons:
- To avoid duplication of funding
- To encourage collaboration between international bodies
- To foster standardisation of the benchmarks of success in ocean energy
WES has led a task on Performance Metrics, on behalf of the IEA-OES, leading to the publication of a series of internationally adopted guidance documents.
An International Evaluation And Guidance Framework For Ocean Energy Technology
The 2nd edition of the Guidance Framework was published in 2023, providing recommendations for the design and delivery of technology development programmes. A key feature of the document is the guidance on evaluation processes used to selected technologies and measure progress.
Share reportEvaluation and Guidance Framework for Ocean Energy Technology – An introduction for funders
An introduction for funders that helps them design effective programmes using a stage gate process and maximise the efficiency of public funding through effective technology selection decisions.Supporting Ocean Energy Technology Development and Commercialisation
A joint publication from the IEA-OES and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), illustrating the complementary suite of guidance documents available to the sector.Workshop on Metrics Used for Measuring Success of Wave Energy Converters
February 2016
This workshop was a collaboration between Wave Energy Scotland and the US Department of Energy.
This document summarises the outcomes of the Wave Energy Scotland (WES) and US Department of Energy (DOE) joint workshop for key stakeholders within the wave energy industry, held in Edinburgh on February 26th 2016.
The main objectives were to review and agree on a list of capabilities and functional requirements for a Wave Energy Converter (WEC), to identify which functional requirements could be associated with capabilities, and to identify and agree on a measureable set of suitable metrics to support a list of WEC requirements. An additional objective was to identify appropriate numerical thresholds for each metric.
The outputs for the workshop will form a valuable input to the on-going joint effort between WES and the DOE to define technology requirements and stage gate metrics for WEC technology development. The workshop was led by Jonathan Hodges, Research and Business Development Manager for WES, and Jochem Weber, Chief Engineer for the Water Power Programme at NREL. A further 52 key stakeholders from 10 countries and 37 different companies were present, covering a broad range of competencies.
This report has been created to capture the outcomes of the workshop, by providing:
- A summary of the discussions taking place within each group during each break out session
- A summary of the metrics and numerical thresholds which had been agreed within each group
Workshop on Stage Gate Metrics for Ocean Energy Technology Development
September 2017
This workshop was a collaboration between Wave Energy Scotland, EERA Ocean Energy Joint Programme, Ocean ERA-NET and the International Energy Agency OES.
This document summarises the outcomes of the workshop on Stage Gate Metrics for Ocean Energy Technology Development, held in Edinburgh on September 16th 2016 and delivered by the EERA Ocean Energy Joint Programme, Ocean ERA-NET and the International Energy Agency OES and facilitated by Wave Energy Scotland.
The workshop was attended by 43 key stakeholders from 10 countries and 32 different companies, covering a broad range of competencies including technology development, supply chain, research, policy making, test facilities and technical verification.
The main objectives were to continue the process of defining practicable metrics for measuring success in a number of key, targeted areas of ocean energy technology development and to identify appropriate numerical success thresholds for each metric.
This is an on-going process to build clarity, information and understanding to support metric definition.
This report presents the process and outputs from the workshop held to identify and agree a set of metrics and associated success thresholds, and concludes with a discussion of the need for high-level LCOE optimisation and the interdependence of metrics.
Ocean Energy Stage Gate Metrics Validation Workshop
November 2017
This document summarises the outcomes of the Ocean Energy Stage Gate Metrics Validation Workshop delivered by Wave Energy Scotland on behalf of and funded by the OCEANERA-NET.
This event was attended by 38 stakeholders from the wave and tidal energy sector and was held in Edinburgh on 29th November 2017. Stakeholder groups represented were public funders, technology developers, academia, government bodies and test sites from eight different countries.