Synergies and Applications between Blue Economy Markers and Marine Renewable Energy

Dear Colleagues,

The ongoing energy transition seeks to establish a sustainable and secure global supply for human activities. While most of the focus has been oriented towards continental systems, promising blue economy markets (BEMs), ranging from offshore aquaculture to seawater desalination and green hydrogen production, will require increasing energy supply to meet their expected growth. Whether its sensor powering or the electricity demand of electric ships, the energy requirements must be met by sustainable solutions, both from economic and environmental perspectives. To that end, several sources of marine renewable energy (MRE) can provide suitable in situ options, at acceptable costs, whilst promoting energy independence for BEMs. While some sectors already demonstrate significant technological maturity, such as offshore wind, others require additional R&D efforts, as is the case with wave energy technologies. Furthermore, few researchers have deeply explored potential synergies and co-location opportunities between BEMs and MRE sources, as existing literature is limited to punctual case studies. It also remains unclear how these fields can be conjugated in practice, and what are the inherent costs/benefits and risks to any such an approach. Therefore, this Special Issue seeks to (i) identify promising BEMs with significant energy requirements, (ii) select, develop and demonstrate feasible MRE technologies, (iii) demonstrate the viability of integrating or co-locating BEMs with MRE through empirical, computational, theoretical, techno-economic and regulatory case studies, (iv) assess potential deployment sites and synergies between MRE and BEMs, as well as inherent challenges and compatibility issues, and (v) promote disruptive methodologies towards meeting the energy demand of marine activities in a viable manner, including hybridization, co-location and multipurpose MRE technologies (e.g., coastal protection, energy production and storage, the shielding of offshore aquaculture farms, among others). With these goals in mind, this Special Issue invites cutting-edge, multidisciplinary contributions from researchers and institutions to bridge the knowledge gap between MRE technologies and BEMs. We expect that the published research will contribute towards a more sustainable and autonomous growth of BEMs, provide MRE devices with deployment opportunities and establish standards, recommendations and guidelines for developers interested in connecting these two auspicious fields of research.

Dr. Daniel Clemente
Dr. Paulo Jorge Rosa Santos
Prof. Dr. Francisco Taveira Pinto
Guest Editors

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