The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney will continue to support the development of the Korea Research Institute of Ships and Ocean Engineering’s Wave Energy Test Site (KRISO-WETS) on the western coast of Jeju Island.

This agreement builds on three years of collaboration and strengthens the ties between EMEC and KRISO.

Previous collaborative work for the test site focused on design aspects such as the electrical infrastructure, data acquisition and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems, plus operational aspects such as environmental monitoring and consenting guidance.

As the site becomes operational, EMEC will provide further guidance on environmental impacts, met-ocean data, commercial considerations and third-party verification.

Rob Flynn, EMEC’s international development manager (www.emec.org.uk), said: “As the world’s largest shipbuilder, Korea brings considerable expertise to the wave energy challenge.

"KRISO’s maritime engineering expertise runs very deep and EMEC is proud to support our Korean colleagues in the development of KRISO-WETS.

"The EMEC team has learnt a lot about how to do things — and how not to do things — over the years, and we want to share that information for the benefit of our test site colleagues around the world.”

Jong-Su Choi, principal investigator for KRISO-WETS, said: “EMEC is the most experienced organisation in the world for operating both wave- and tidal-energy test sites.

"KRISO has been developing its wave-energy test site very efficiently with the support of EMEC since 2016. KRISO seeks to become an advanced-technology hub for wave-energy open-sea test sites, based on this international co-operation.”