Ocean Energy Conferences

UMass-Dartmouth's Marine Renewable Energy Center (MREC) is hosting two important ocean energy conferences in September and October.

The first event, entitled 2nd Annual Ocean Energy for NE Conference will take place on Thursday September 17, 2009 in Hyannis, MA. The program is designed to bring together the policy, planning and public interest stakeholders to address issues about ocean energy prospects in NE waters. Speakers from the US Department of Energy, Minerals Management Service, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the MA Office of Coastal Zone Management, Conservation Law Foundation, Cape and Islands Renewable Energy Collaborative and many more will break up into facilitated panels to discuss how they view ocean energy development opportunities and concerns. The morning will be topped off with a delicious lunch and a wrap-up of next steps. Attendees from government, municipalities, the public at large, academia and industry are welcome to attend. A detailed agenda and registration information are available at www.mrec.umassd.edu.

The second event, 1st Annual MREC Technical Conference is a conference dedicated to marine renewable energy technologies. It will take place on Thursday October 15, 2009 at the Advanced Technology & Manufacturing Center (ATMC) in Fall River, Massachusetts. The purpose of this conference is to advance the science of ocean generation of electricity and to assist the industry in finding new technology for commercialization. The line up of technology based presentations will add to the technical literature available for ocean power generation. With sessions dedicated to ocean wave energy conversion devices, tidal in stream conversion devices and offshore wind generation systems and platform design the conference will provide a forum for researchers to present new technologies. There will also be a discussion of the methodology and results of site survey work. This work is crucial to pin pointing exact locations where there is a consistent power resource and for characterizing the seafloor for foundation and/or mooring installation. To submit an abstract and to register to attend please visit www.mrec.umassd.edu.