European Marine Energy Centre

Key services:

Access to open-sea test sites | offshore operational expertise | industry-led demonstration opportunities

EMEC is a not-for-profit innovation catalyst based in Orkney, Scotland, supporting the development, testing and demonstration of technologies in real-world marine environments. EMEC provides purpose-built open-sea testing facilities for prototype technologies, subsystems and components, helping innovators reduce the time, cost and risk of technology development and accelerate routes to commercialisation. EMEC is also the world’s only recognised ISO/IEC 17025 test laboratory for ocean energy, providing independent performance assessment services.

Within the Blue Robotarium partnership, EMEC provides access to open-sea test sites, offshore operational expertise and industry-led demonstration opportunities. This enables robotics, autonomous systems and AI technologies to be developed, tested and validated in practical applications across the blue economy.

Building on more than two decades of experience supporting offshore technology development, EMEC has expanded its activities beyond marine energy to support innovation across offshore wind, hydrogen and e-fuels, clean transport and island decarbonisation. Through its onshore and offshore facilities, EMEC supports the integration of renewable energy into wider energy systems and hosts first-of-a-kind and pilot-scale demonstrations, including pioneering projects such as demonstrating Microsoft’s underwater data centre, helping to accelerate the development and deployment of new technologies.