eere.energy.gov 

Water Power Technologies Office Peer Review 

Marine and Hydrokinetics Program 

Standards Development, IEC TC 114, 

IEA-OES Annual Contribution 

Walt Musial 

National Renewable Energy Laboratory 

Walter.Musial@nrel.gov 303.384.6956

February 14-16, 2017

Washington, D.C.

NREL/PR-5000-68367

NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC
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Project Overview 

Standards Development, IEC TC 114, IEA-OES Annual Contribution

• Supports participation in standards development and research programs under 

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) (www.iec.ch) and International Energy 

Agency (IEA) Ocean Energy Systems (OES) (https://www.ocean-energy-systems.org/).

• These are the only activities providing formal international collaboration in DOE program. 

• The development of international recognized standards is critical for the 

commercialization of marine energy technology. 

• Nascent industry cannot sustain this activity without DOE support. 

The Challenge 

• The industry must take aggressive steps to accelerate technology advancement and 

reduce deployment risk. Internationally recognized standards can help ensure minimum 

levels of safety, reduce project development risk, secure financing, and provide highquality reproducible test results. 

Partners

• The IEC Technical Committee (TC) 114, U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) has 43 

active members from industry, academia, and national labs. In addition, the TAG 

collaborates with 22 countries participating on this effort. 

• The Ocean Energy Systems is an International Energy Agency Technology Collaboration 

Program that has 25 member countries. 
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Technology 

Maturity 

Deployment 

Barriers 

Crosscutting 

Approaches 

• Enable access to testing 

facilities that help 

accelerate the pace of 

technology development 

• Improve resource 

characterization to 

optimize technologies, 

reduce deployment risks 

and identify promising 

markets 

• Exchange of data 

information and 

expertise 

• Identify potential 

improvements to 

regulatory processes 

and requirements 

• Support research 

focused on retiring or 

mitigating environmental 

risks and reducing costs 

• Build awareness of 

MHK technologies 

• Ensure MHK interests 

are considered in 

coastal and marine 

planning processes 

• Evaluate deployment 

infrastructure needs and 

possible approaches to 

bridge gaps 

• Support project 

demonstrations to 

reduce risk and build 

investor confidence 

• Assess and 

communicate potential 

MHK market 

opportunities, including 

off-grid and non-electric 

• Inform incentives and 

policy measures 

• Develop, maintain and 

communicate our 

national strategy 

• Support development 

of standards 

• Expand MHK technical 

and research 

community 

Program Strategic Priorities 

• Test and demonstrate 

prototypes 

• Develop cost-effective 

approaches for 

installation, grid 

integration, operations 

and maintenance 

• Conduct R&D for 

innovative MHK 

systems & components 

• Develop tools to 

optimize device and 

array performance and 

reliability 

• Develop and apply 

quantitative metrics to 

advance MHK 

technologies 

Market 

Development 
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Market 

Development 

Accelerates MHK Commercialization 

Project Strategic Alignment 

Impact —Internationally recognized consensus standards 

• Accelerates commercialization of Marine Energy 

Technology 

• Builds confidence in the investment community for 

project financing 

• Reduces technical risk to developers to enable 

predictable lifetimes and energy production 

• Helps regulators manage risk to public and reduces 

failures 

• Allows U.S. industry to collect critical information and 

grow through international collaboration 

• Enables DOE to construct a targeted and well-informed 

ocean energy research program 

• Provides feedback to the U.S. industry on the status of 

international activities 

Final Product: Mature suite of consensus-based 

international standards and certification path for 

commercial development 

• Support project demonstrations 

to reduce risk and build 

investor confidence 

• Assess and communicate 

potential MHK market 

opportunities, including off-grid 

and non-electric 

• Inform incentives and policy 

measures 

• Develop, maintain, and 

communicate our national 

strategy 

• Support development of 

standards 

• Expand MHK technical and 

research community 
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Technical Approach—IEC TC114 

IEC TC114 

• Serve as Technical Administrator to 

manage U.S. TAG, TC114, and 

interface with IECRE with American 

National Standards Institute (ANSI) 

• Maintain and manage subcontract 

(Cardinal Engineering) to support 

industry participation through 

stipends and ANSI dues (approx. 

$350k) 

• Participate and lead directly in the 

development of international 

standards and certification 

processes related to Marine Energy 

• Maintain strong international 

leadership through TC114 

chairman, U.S. TC114 Delegation, 

and TAG Executive Committee Organizational Structure of IEC 

Standards 

Development 
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IEC TC114 Project Teams and Ad 

Hoc Groups 

WG/PT Title Convener

MT62600-1 Terminology Mohamed El-Hawary (CA)

MT62600-2 Design requirements for marine energy systems Eric Greene (US)

PT62600-20 Guideline for design assessment of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) system Martin Brown (GB)

PT62600-30 Electrical power quality requirements for wave, tidal, and other water current energy converters Mohamed El-Hawary (CA) 

PT62600-40 Acoustic characterization of marine energy converters Brian Polagye (US)

PT62600-102 Wave Energy Converter power performance assessment at a second location using measured assessment 

data Kim Nielsen (DK)

PT62600-103 Guidelines for the early-stage development of wave energy converters: Best practices and recommended 

procedures for the testing of pre-prototype scale devices Brian Holmes (IE) 

PT62600-202 Scale testing of tidal stream energy systems Jamie Grimwade (GB)

PT62600-300 Power performance assessment of electricity producing river current energy converters Sue Malloy (CA)

PT62600-301 River energy resource assessment and characterization Kevin Haas (US)

AHG 3 Assessment of information received on IEC TS 62600-100, Power performance assessment of electricity 

producing wave energy converters Scott Beatty (CA) 

AHG 4 Assessment of information received on IEC TS 62600-200, Power performance assessment of electricity 

producing tidal energy converters Gabe Alsenas (US) 

AHG 5 Assessment of information received on IEC TS 62600-101, Marine energy—Wave, tidal, and other water 

current converters—Part 101: Wave energy resource assessment and characterization Matt Folley (GB)

AHG 6 Assessment of information received on IEC TS 62600-10—The Assessment of Mooring Systems for Marine 

Energy Converters Ryan Nicoll (CA)

AHG 7 Assessment of information received on IEC TS 62600-201—Marine energy—Wave, tidal, and other water 

current converters—Part 201: Tidal energy resource assessment and characterisation Claire Cohen (GB)

AHG 8 Proposal for a plan for the alignment of future work activities under the existing AHGs, PTs, and MTs Jonathan Colby (US)

Chairman: Neil Rondorf (U.S.; 2011-2016) Jonathan Colby (U.S.; 2016) U.S. TA: Jonathan Colby (2014-2016), Bill Staby (2016) 

Secretary: Danny Peacock (U.K.) U.S. Deputy Technical Advisor: Roger Bagbey 

Technical Officer: Charles Jacquemart (IEC) U.S. TAG Administrator: Arielle Cardinal 
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• Disseminate information and work products to U.S. stakeholders 

• United States serves as operating agent for two Tasks: Task 4 (Annex IV) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Task 5 

NREL 

• Facilitate information exchange between countries and delegates by: 

– Leveraging information and coordinating efforts to insure that investments are of the highest impact to advance the ocean 

energy sector 

– Connecting international colleagues with U.S. experts and vice versa 

– Introducing at OES meetings new topics for discussion that can benefit from international collaboration 

• Connect U.S. experts with opportunities to participate in international workshops to identify ocean energy knowledge gaps and 

develop needed work products to fill those gaps 

Technical Approach and Accomplishments 

Ocean Energy Systems 

Task 5 Information Exchange Workshops 

• Workshop I “Open Water Testing,” Ireland, Oct. 2012 

• Workshop II “Computational Modeling & Analysis,” UK, 25–26 Nov. 2013

• Workshop III “Designing for Reliability,” Portugal, 5–6 Feb. 2014

• Workshop IV “Ocean Energy Policy,” Sweden, 12 May 2016

Benefit to the Industry: Participation in the OES – IEA Technology Collaboration makes international research results readily 

available to all of the U.S. industry at no cost and ensures U.S. interests are represented globally. For example: 

1. The international environmental research made available in the “State of the Science Report” and Tethys 

2. OES Workshops allow immediate collaboration opportunities to participants and provides open workshop reports to all others 

3. U.S. participation in OES ensures that U.S. interests are represented in OES international reports and benchmarking activities 
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Accomplishments and Progress 

TC 114 

• Five (5) published Technical Specifications in FY14–16 enable 

industry designs with better design consistency 

• 132 active and observing members of the U.S. TAG provide strong 

input to standards process 

• U.S. leadership on TC level (U.S. TAG Technical Advisor and 

TC114 Chairman) provided critical support of U.S. interests 

• U.S. TAG website (www.tc114.us) provides essential dissemination 

of standards information to stakeholders 

• Liaisons to other industry groups provide essential communication 

• U.S. leadership under Jonathan Colby recognized with IEC 1906 

award for exceptional achievement 

• Marine Energy Operational Management Committee (ME OMC) 

U.S. members help lead certification under IECRE 

OES: Open access research and market data is available to all of 

the U.S. industry, providing international development opportunities 
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Project Plan and Schedule 

IEC TC114 

• U.S. TAG and DOE support initiated in 2008. 

• Work is ongoing with no planned end date. 

• The standards task has been on track and there have been no significant delays. 

• Regular meetings are held for the U.S. TAG, TC 114, and ME OMC. 

IEA OES 

• U.S. participation initiated in 2005, and Task 4 and 5 started in 2011 and continuing 

participation is planned dependent on value to United States. 

• Four (4) Annex V Workshops have been held and reports have been made public on 

OES Website www.ocean-energy-systems.org. Future workshops to be held on a 

rotational basis and organized by selected countries depending on interest. 

• The United States will be participating in two new tasks on wave and tidal modeling 

code validation efforts to be accomplished by subject-matter experts in the member 

countries. 

Regular Go/No-Go decision points for Standards Work are conducted at annual 

project review meetings with DOE. 
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Project Budget 

• Project costs have been in line with plans. 

• 72% of project funding has been costed to date. 

• Projects funds are generally split 80% for IEC TC114 work and 

20% for IEA OES work 

• NREL provides fixed stipends to supplement work by subjectmatter experts (SMEs). Balance of labor is either volunteered by 

SMEs or provided by their companies. 

Budget History 

FY2014 FY2015 FY2016

DOE Cost-Share DOE Cost-Share DOE Cost-Share

$765k — $646k — $700k* — 

* $139,433 transitioned into this in FY16 from a separate Water Power project. 
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Research Integration and 

Collaboration 

Partners, Subcontractors, and Collaborators 

IEC TC114 

• Subcontract: Cardinal Engineering. 

• 132 U.S. observing and participating 

members from government, academia, 

and industry; and 22 member countries. 

IEA OES 

Member Countries, together with Cardinal 

Engineering in FY14 and NREL in FY15–16, 

served as Annex V Operating Agent, in 

support of DOE. 

Communications and Technology Transfer 

IEC TC114: The U.S. TAG maintains a website (www.tc114.us) that details the activities of IEC 

TC114 and provides links to the purchase of all technical specifications. 

The TAG TA and TC Chair present the status of TC114 activities at industry conferences and 

events throughout the year (e.g., METS, OTC, IMREC). 

IEA OES: OES reports will be published on the OES website at www.ocean-energy-systems.org

when approved by the OES Executive Committee. 

Participating and Observing IEC TC114 Countries 
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Next Steps and Future Research 

FY17/Current Research 

IEC TC114: Continue to manage day-to-day operations of U.S. TAG and U.S. 

participation in IEC. Recruit subject-matter experts for new project teams. Organize 

and attend U.S. TAG and IEC TC114 Plenary Meetings. Work with Marine Energy 

Council and DOE to determine prioritization for standards work. 

IEA OES: Provide coordination and logistical support; develop technical 

presentations for Executive Committee meetings and workshops; analyze and review 

OES reports and work products; and contribute to the OES country report and other 

OES reports for the United States. 

Proposed Future Research 

IEC TC114: Standards are evolving over time to identify critical needs of the end 

users and fill gaps: 

• Loads measurement and verification 

• Management plan for technology and project development 

• Coordinate IECRE activities for certification on Conformity Assessment Board 

IEA OES: The OES Executive Committee approved two new tasks to collaboratively 

validate wave and tidal modeling codes with international experts. Additionally, an 

international roadmap and strategy are being planned, which the United States will 

support.