Our Vision
To place Wales and Welsh companies at the heart of the UK’s growing marine and offshore renewable energy sectors, ensuring they play a vital role in tackling global climate change and decarbonising our energy needs.
Our Mission
The Marine Energy Engineering Centre of Excellence is ORE Catapult’s flagship hub for advancing the Welsh marine and offshore renewable energy sectors. We are a catalyst for research, technology innovation and testing and demonstration to accelerate the commercialisation of the wave, tidal and offshore wind sectors by reducing the cost of energy, improving efficiency and reliability, and supporting the growth of the Welsh supply chain.
A multi-million-pound collaboration between ORE Catapult and four Welsh Universities: Swansea University, Cardiff University, Cardiff Metropolitan University and Bangor University, the Centre is based at Pembroke Dock and is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and Swansea Bay City Deal. It is part of the £60-million-pound Pembroke Dock Marine Project. Working alongside the Marine Energy Test Area (META), the Port of Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire Demonstration Zone, local universities and the local supply chain, the Centre offers unique facilities and capabilities to the Welsh marine energy sector.
What we do
MEECE supports innovative companies in Wales (see eligibility) to develop new products, processes and services for the offshore renewable energy sector. We can provide support in three main ways:
Research, Development and Innovation
- Desk-based research projects to establish feasibility and impact, including:
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- Numerical modelling of engineering problems to appraise technical feasibility.
- Economic modelling to quantify the impact that innovations have on reducing the costs of offshore renewable energy.
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- Free Technology Assessment audits through our TAP system.
- Access to world-leading research expertise at both the Catapult and our University partners, as well as access to our academic Research Hubs in Blades, Powertrains and Electrical Infrastructure.
- Collaborative innovation projects to support technology developments at no (or minimal) cost to the company, including building prototypes of new technologies and coordinating test campaigns to provide ground truth data on performance and reliability.
- Launching innovation challenges to industry, seeking cross-sector solutions.
- Facilitating access to expertise through the Catapult’s other Centres of Excellence in Operations and Maintenance and Floating Offshore Wind, as well as our wider regional expertise across the UK and the Catapult Network.
- We can provide access to a range of unique testing facilities and offshore sites to demonstrate innovations without the costs and risks faced by technology developers, including:
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- The Marine Energy Test Area (META)
- Facilities at our partner Universities, including flume tanks and wind tunnels.
- Our world-leading test facilities at the National Renewable Energy Centre, Blyth and our 7MW Levenmouth Demonstration Turbine.
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Commercialisation support
- Provision of market entry information on market size, opportunity, key players and competitors etc.
- Support in advancing technologies through to commercialisation through access to industry-leading programmes including our National and Regional Launch Academies.
- Development of detailed business cases specific to your technology, including possible exploitation strategies and financial modelling and analysis of new technology adoption.
- Access to private investment through sector-specific investor introductions and pitch/executive summary preparation support.
Company Growth Support
- Supporting Welsh companies to seize supply chain opportunities through accessing industry and ORE Catapult support programmes, including the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership and the Fit 4 Offshore Renewables Programmes.
- Advice and guidance in seeking export opportunities in emerging markets.
We want to hear from innovative SMEs with ground-breaking technologies and concepts that MEECE can support through to commercialisation. We can work across all Technology Readiness Levels (TRL), from basic concepts to pre-production prototypes. Click here to see some examples of our current projects.