FORWARD-2030 was showcased at the International Conference on Ocean Energy (ICOE) and Ocean Energy Europe (OEE) 2026, where project partners shared insights on environmental monitoring, array deployment and the technologies needed to support the next generation of tidal energy projects.
Held in Brussels from 5-7 October, ICOE-OEE brought together developers, researchers, policymakers and supply chain companies from across the global ocean energy sector to discuss the latest progress towards commercial deployment.
A key focus of FORWARD-2030 is helping to reduce barriers to tidal stream array development through environmental evidence gathering, operational experience and technology innovation. These themes featured across several conference sessions.
- Oliver Wragg from Orbital Marine Power presented in ‘Tidal Tech Showcase – Beyond Demonstration: Scaling Tidal Energy’. The session examined the steps required to transition tidal energy from successful demonstrations to commercial deployment at scale.
- Leonore van Velzen, Head of Operations & Maintenance at EMEC, presented in the ‘Environmental Monitoring: Strategies and Tools’ session, sharing insights from FORWARD-2030’s environmental monitoring work around Orbital Marine Power’s O2 tidal turbine at EMEC’s Fall of Warness test site. Drawing on multimodal monitoring campaigns undertaken in the project, the presentation highlighted efforts to reduce evidence gaps around marine wildlife interactions with tidal turbines and generate data that can support future consenting processes.
- Leonore also spoke in the ‘Delivering the First Ocean Energy Arrays: Modelling and Design’ session, exploring the practical considerations involved in moving from individual device demonstrations to commercial-scale tidal arrays. The discussion reflected many of the challenges that FORWARD-2030 is helping address.
- Carly Tait, Senior Project Manager at EMEC also discussed FORWARD-2030 the session ‘Critical Components: Building Stronger Connections’, where she looked at the technologies and supporting infrastructure required for array-scale ocean energy developments, highlighting the importance of enabling systems alongside generating technologies.
Alongside the conference programme, FORWARD-2030 was represented at the Orbital Marine Power exhibition stand together with sister-projects MAXBlade and EURO-TIDES. Visitors had the opportunity to learn more about the innovations being progressed in the three projects and how they were supporting the development of the O2-X turbine and the planned EURO-TIDES tidal array. The stand also featured a new scale model of O2-X, which attracted significant interest throughout the event.
Together, these activities demonstrated how FORWARD-2030 is contributing to the environmental evidence, operational learning and technology development needed to support the future deployment of commercial tidal energy arrays.
