The future of Ocean Energy and Shipping


for such a development is not yet there, but I am looking forward to the next decades to see what will happen!”


"MARIN’s role is to bring people together and inspire them"


A related question Olaf, what are the biggest challenges that offshore renewable energy production is facing?


capacity to scale up to a global level, in terms of production, storage and distribution. Required investment in infrastructure is also part of the challenge as well as future operational costs and time required for uptake and scale-up.


In 2019 the European Sustainable Shipping Forum of the European Commission launched a workgroup on Sustainable Alternative Power for Ships. MARIN is task leader for the identification and documentation of the alternative energy and power solutions. Hopefully, such initiatives will inspire most of the industry leaders and other continents to act at global scale.”


Olaf, over the last 50 years, MARIN’s expertise has grown hand-in-hand with the developments in the oil & gas industry. Which heritage from the past can be valuable for the innovation of today and projects of tomorrow?


“In the FPSO JIP Week we have over 20 years of experience that contribute to the design and safe operation of large floaters in harsh environments. The offshore industry has developed from nearshore activities to an industry where deep-water exploration and production is standard. For renewable energy, we now see a similar trend where onshore techniques related to wind turbines have migrated into coastal waters. The market for fixed wind turbines has matured, much like developments in the North Sea in the 60s and 70s. The next step would be to go to floating developments for deeper waters. The storage of energy will be a key driver for harvesting energy in remote locations. Developing oil and gas fields in remote locations finally led to the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) facility. How interesting would it be if we could harvest renewable energy in remote locations in a similar way, for example if the electricity could be stored in a synthetic fuel on board of a future FPSO. The business case


“Operational and maintenance costs on the longer term. In the FPSO JIP Week we have learnt a lot about long-term integrity of hulls and mooring systems. We have discussed lifetime extensions and we have demonstrated that monitoring the actual consumed fatigue life and corrosion damage is very important. You have to know the actual state of a floater to estimate the remaining lifetime.


Although the risk profile of (floating) wind turbines is different, I believe one of the biggest challenges is the long-term integrity of a large number of separate structures that are to a large extent, optimised for construction costs. On the bright side there are a lot of developments in new and cost-efficient monitoring techniques. Offshore wind could benefit from combining those developments with the experience from other industries.”


Guilhem, do you think cross-industry collaboration is the way forward? And what are the major changes in the energy supply chain that need to happen before zero-emission shipping is a reality?


“To tackle the chicken and egg issue, more collaboration in the energy, infrastructure and shipping sector are needed, as well as the


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