A memory of a founding Member
Dr. Kim Nielsen, Delegate from Denmark since 2001
The year is 2001, and I am in Paris with Jan Bünger from the Danish Energy Agency to sign the Implementing Agreement on Ocean Energy Systems under the umbrella of the International Energy Agency.
Jan Bünger had been the programme manager and I had been the secretary of a four-year dedicated Wave Energy Program which had generated waves of interest across Europe. Following a change of government in Denmark, the program came to an end in 2002. Jan Bünger expressed that one good way to preserve the learnings from the programme would be to join the IEA-OES group. Denmark had already had positive experience in similar collaborative frameworks for wind energy and district heating.
The Implementing Agreement on Ocean Energy had been prepared with support and advocacy from the United Kingdom, Portugal and the European Commission. The European Commission had already supported wave energy in previous decades through the Preliminary Actions on Wave Energy lead by Denmark.
The UK had since the early 1970s been frontrunner in the development of wave energy systems and had coordinated the Ocean Energy European Thematic Network on Wave Energy (WAVENET). Moreover, in 2001, the UK had opened the offshore test site EMEC in Orkney.
Portugal had also played a leading role, which was reflected in the appointment of the first Chairperson from Portugal, Teresa Pontes, and in the decision to base the OES Secretariat in Portugal. I remember a UK delegate saying that the Chairperson should inspire trust and confidence, and Teresa Pontes was the perfect candidate. She was highly respected for her work on the first European Wave Energy Atlas, published in 1996. Portugal had also built and operated the first European wave energy plant, the Pico Plant in the Azores, the home island of Ana Brito e Melo, who one year later became the dedicated Secretary of OES ever since.
In 2002, there was a trust that collaboration and sharing of efforts and knowhow could help identify the best and most efficient wave energy converters. This was demonstrated at the conference dinner of EWTEC in Denmark in 1999, where Richard Yemm, developer of Pelamis, and Tom Denniss, developer of Ocean Swell concept in Australia — both
very talented musicians — played piano and guitar while singing their own version “All we need is Waves” of a well-known Beatles tune. It turned into a very amusing jam session between inventors.
