Evaluation of Offshore Renewable Energy for Cluster Benefits

The urgency to mitigate climate change is increasing the rate of transformation in energy supply systems towards a low carbon future to ensure global temperature rise is limited to 1.5 Deg. Existing offshore energy technologies were examined through the lens of cluster benefits. Offshore renewable technologies considered were Offshore Wind, Floating Solar, Wave Energy, Tidal Energy and Offshore Thermal Energy (OTEC). The theory of underpinning of clusters, evolution, benefits, and challenges were reviewed. To corroborate the literature review, a pilot survey was sent to participants in industry which commented and highlighted their awareness of certain available technologies. The perceived benefits of clustering included the ability to achieve economies of scale whilst challenges remained around permitting and obtaining social licences. Based on the literature review and survey, a theoretical framework has been proposed to evaluate offshore energy cluster benefits. There is scope to further this research with a larger sample size and diversity of participants to strengthen the framework. It was noted that geospatial hard constraints and policies could be important framing factors for cluster formation in countries of interest. Country specific cluster examination would bring more specificity, depth and application and should be an area of future research.