Context & Challenges

A highly promising yet underdeveloped energy resource 

The Atlantic Area concentrates one of Europe’s most significant wave energy resources. Compared to other renewable sources, wave energy offers a higher power density and lower variability, with strong potential to complement wind and solar energy and support a more stable energy system.  

 Despite these advantages, wave energy deployment across the Atlantic remains constrained and uneven, revealing the challenges of translating high resource potential into effective and scalable deployment pathways.

A multi-dimensional challenge across Atlantic coastal regions
These constraints stem from a set of shared and interconnected barriers affecting coastal regions across the Atlantic Area:
  • Limited infrastructure and investment capacity, restricting access to testing facilities, grid integration and deployment conditions
  • Fragmented policy and regulatory frameworks, creating uncertainty and slowing down project development
  • Technological and operational constraints, affecting performance, maintenance and reliability.
  • Environmental and ecological uncertainties, including potential impacts on habitats, sediment dynamics and marine ecosystems
  • Challenges related to coexistence with established maritime activities, such as fisheries, aquaculture, ports and tourism
  • Limited consolidated evidence on cumulative impacts and long-term viability, reducing confidence for decision-making and investment.
These challenges are interconnected and shape a complex environment that constrains effective and scalable deployment across the Atlantic Area. Wave energy deployment requires the alignment of technical performance, environmental sustainability, socio-economic viability and governance frameworks. AWESDI’s approach not only focuses on technology development, but fully addresses the broader system in which deployment takes place.
Towards more informed and coordinated deployment 

Bridging the gap between high resource potential and effective deployment requires improved coordination, strong stakeholder engagement and access to reliable, integrated evidence. 

There is a clear need for approaches that: 

  • reduce uncertainty for policymakers and investors 
  • support balanced decision-making across environmental, social and economic dimensions 
  • facilitate cooperation between regions and sectors 
  • enable the transfer and uptake of knowledge across the Atlantic Area 
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