Powering the Blue Economy

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Blue X

The future of ocean energy technology in powering the Blue Economy

Blue X
Blue X wave energy converter

As published in Ocean News & Technology, January 2025

Cameron McNatt, Founder and Managing Director, Mocean energy

The Blue Economy has been gaining significant traction over recent years and is projected to reach a market size of $3 trillion by 2030, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). A catch-all term that encompasses industries and activities related to the ocean, seas, and coastal waters, the Blue Economy spans a wide array of industries; but a common thread that runs through all is the increasing need for clean, reliable energy solutions to support their operations.

How to best fuel sustainable growth of the Blue Economy is a pivotal subject, as it not only supports economic prosperity, but also aligns with critical decarbonization goals.

Blue Energy

Interest in the Blue Economy represents a global shift toward sustainability and the need to harness the oceans for economic gain, without exacerbating environmental challenges.

Traditional sectors, such as offshore oil and gas, maritime and aquaculture, are under pressure to clean up their operations, while newer industries like offshore wind, wave energy, and ocean data collection are rapidly growing. Each face their own unique hurdles, but they also share a common challenge: they need efficient, clean energy that can be sourced locally to reduce costs and emissions of their operations.

Ports and harbors, which sit as the intersection between sea and land, are a clearcut example of these increasing energy demands. With global trade on the rise, such facilities face the dual challenge of growth while also decarbonizing their own operations, as well as supporting their customers in the shipping and manufacturing sectors to do the same.

Many ports aim to achieve this by electrifying their infrastructure—cranes, cargo handling equipment, and other logistics operations— so that they can run off renewable energy. At the same time, ships are increasingly turning to shore power by plugging into the port’s grid to minimize their own emissions while docked.

However, these ports, many of which are in far-flung destinations, often face grid constraints that limit their ability to access the necessary power from the grid.

Emerging applications

Beyond these conventional industries, new and nascent applications—while demonstrating the enormous potential of the Blue Economy—come with their own energy demands.

With the exponential rise in data generation, and the energy-intensive nature of this process, subsea data centers are emerging as a compelling option. Cooling is a major operational cost for traditional data centers, but placing them underwater provides a natural solution, and also improves the reliability of these facilities.

Evidence has also shown that fewer operational failures occur when data centers are submerged.

Another frontier is direct ocean CO2 capture, which involves extracting carbon dioxide directly from seawater, and then utilizing it or storing it. Due to the higher concentration of CO2 in seawater, this process is more efficient than direct air capture, but its application would require robust, renewable energy solutions to power operations.

The imperative for alternative, localized, clean energy solutions that can meet this surging demand is clear. This need opens doors for offshore renewable sources— such as wave energy, floating solar arrays, and energy storage systems—that can provide consistent, predictable, low-carbon power.

Ocean-based innovations

The spectrum of energy solutions open to the Blue Economy is diverse and expanding further, ranging from well-established offshore wind turbines to more nascent approaches like wave energy and subsea battery storage.

Wave energy, a solution that offers high predictability and consistency, holds particular promise and is, by its very nature, intrinsically linked to the Blue Economy. Mocean Energy is part of a second generation of companies spearheading the development of this technology, benefiting from technical and commercial experience of early companies. In particular, our technology uses a software-optimized hull-shape to produce more power, while being survivable and reliable, and commercially, we are exploring the use of green energy in the blue economy—providing energy to diverse applications, from subsea equipment used in oil and gas operations to remote islands, and ocean-based carbon capture installations.

Another key pillar of our work is focusing on integrating wave power into multi-energy solutions that combine solar and energy storage systems to address intermittency issues. Wave power and solar are highly complementary across day-to-day and seasonal time scales—that is, when wave energy is providing power, there is frequently lower solar, and vice versa. When these two renewable sources are combined with onboard or subsea energy storage, our technology is capable of providing consistently available power. We are even starting to work with other ocean energy technology developers towards developing optimized multi-renewable systems for our valued customers.

Market maturity challenge

Moreover, despite promising innovations, widespread deployment of these essential technologies is not without challenges and the maturation of ocean-based energy technologies hinges on a few critical factors.

Pilot projects are essential for proving the feasibility and economic viability of new energy solutions. Initiatives, like those funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE) $112.5 million wave energy program, will be crucial in bridging this gap, demonstrating that technologies can move from theoretical concepts to real-world applications. Demonstrations can validate performance, build trust among potential users, and refine the integration of multiple energy sources.

The Blue Economy will benefit from a holistic approach to energy supply that incorporates various technologies—wave, wind, solar, and energy storage—into comprehensive solutions. System integrators that can piece together these disparate technologies are essential to ensure that power supply meets demand consistently and efficiently.

For any technology to become competitive, the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) must decrease. This typically happens as technologies mature, production scales, and supply chains stabilize. In the case of wave energy, initial applications may focus on industries where high energy costs are already the norm, such as offshore oil and gas and aquaculture, allowing early-stage projects to remain economically viable.

A new era

Maintaining a Blue Economy that harnesses the ocean’s wealth of resources, while also protecting our natural environment and delivering on decarbonization goals, hinges on the development of innovative, reliable, and clean energy solutions. Waves offer a consistent and predictable source of energy in many seas around the world, and is highly complementary to other renewables like solar.

Mocean Energy’s Managing Director Cameron McNatt with Mocean Energy's Blue X wave energy converter at Forth Ports’ Rosyth Docks.