Welcome to Aqua-RET

Aquatic Renewable Energy Technologies (Aqua-RET) is an e-learning tool promoting aquatic renewable technologies. It is an EU-funded Leonardo da Vinci project, making a real contribution to technology transfer activities within the sector.

The power of water has been harnessed for thousands of years.  Today, there is an urgency demonstrated across Europe to provide more electricity generated by renewable energy to meet EU and Kyoto regulations in response to climate change. The EU Parliament recently adopted a report which calls for an increase in electricity generated from renewable energy sources from 12.2% in 2002 to 20% by 2020 (COM (2004) 366, The Share of Renewable Energy in the EU, 29/09/05). To meet this quota there has been a corresponding growth in interest in offshore renewable energy technologies, such as offshore wind, wave and tidal stream.

However, the introduction of new technologies is often greeted with resistance from the general public, professionals and institutions. The experience of land based renewable energy, and particularly wind farms, provides a classic example of how a failure to provide basic information and to educate key stakeholders can lead to a significant degree of animosity and misunderstanding.

Aqua-RET aims to prevent this information gap by providing an e-learning tool which demonstrates to the user, in straightforward steps how these technologies work, where & how they fit into the landscape, and how they benefit the economy.