Overwiev

MARine Energy 

The great growth of technologies for the production of renewable energy from marine sources created the need to carry out increasingly detailed analyses of the energy potential of sea bordering countries. 

The MARE project, funded by MUR in the framework of PRIN-PNRR, arises from the premise that for the energy production from marine sources, becoming an important piece in the mosaic of renewable energies. The available resource must be well assessed, in order to demonstrate the real productive possibilities and attract investors. 

The MARE project activity presents the potential tools identified for the definition of a methodology capable of determining the potential of energy producibility from sea waves and marine current along the territorial waters of the Aegadian Archipelago.

To assess the potential for the marine energy, it is opportune to employ the most suitable methodologies for the analysis of such a particularly complex system. The MARE project aims to contribute to the necessary knowledge so that the energy production from marine waves and currents may become a real resource for small islands. 

Generally speaking, islands are the ideal laboratory of sustainability, and they are today, all over the world, in a dimension of great interest where ambition and concreteness are combined. The challenge is to make the smaller Italian islands a vanguard in the world in the dissemination of innovative and economically sustainable solutions on energy and water, in the circular economy and sustainable mobility. A perspective that, as the international experiences, can help to revive the economy and attract tourism to the islands because it preserves these unique ecosystems, making them attractive precisely for their landscape and environmental qualities (Legambiente, 2018).

The MARE project focused on two main lines:

• The collection, organization, and analysis of available environmental data, with particular reference to those strictly related to the studied problem;
• The identification, on the basis of geological, geophysical and geochemical investigation, of the potential for energy production of the highlighted case of study.

The following types of investigations are included within the project of surveys in the Aegadian Archipelago and surroundings:

•  bathymetric surveys
•  seismic microtremor investigations
•  current meter surveys
•  investigations of temperature and salinity parameters

For the following purposes:

• Assessment of Energy Production Potential from marine waves motion;
• Assessment of Energy Production Potential from marine currents.