Certification Schemes for Marine Renewable Energy Technologies

Abstract Floating Offshore Wind Turbines (FOWT), Current and Tidal Turbines (CTT), Wave Energy Converters (WEC) and Ocean Thermal Energy Converters (OTEC) are promising Marine Renewable Energy (MRE) technologies. Considering the emerging stage of development of MRE technologies, no dedicated certification scheme has been developed so far by international organizations. Technical specifications are under development in the framework of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Technical Committee (TC) 114 and IEC Renewable Energy (IECRE) has been recently created. Within IECRE, the Marine Energy Operational Management Committee (ME OMC) is in charge of the development of a conformity assessment system dedicated to MRE. In this context, Bureau Veritas (BV) has issued a Guidance Note NI631 Certification Scheme for Marine Renewable Energy Technologies to support technology developers and speed up commercial phases. The note NI631 covers different types of technology for energy conversion from wind, wave, tidal or temperature gradients at sea. This paper presents the Guidance Note NI631, which purpose is to provide an overview of the certification schemes applicable to MRE technologies, addressing prototype, component, type and project certification. Main objective, scope, intermediary steps to be completed and resulting certificates will be detailed for each certification scheme, as well as their interactions. Finally, focus will be made on a riskbased approach developed by Bureau Veritas to define the reference set of standards used as a basis for certification. A methodology relying on the qualification of new technology process will be detailed when no guidelines or standards are available for the most innovative parts of any MECs, or when existing standards from related sectors, such as wind energy, shipping or offshore Oil&Gas, require adaptations to fit their requirements to the specific MRE conditions.