Report of the Working Group on Marine Renewable Energy (WGMRE)

The 2018 meeting of the ICES Working Group on Marine Renewable Energy (WGMRE) took place on 17–18 April. It was hosted by Runde Environmental Centre in Norway and attended by 6 participants representing 5 countries.The WGMRE members gave presentations providing summaries of the developments in MRE in their respective countries, including consenting processes, management tools and relevant research programs. Our host arranged for an afternoon seminar which provided an opportunity to consider in detail the active research associated with development of marine renewable energy in Norway: http://rundecentre.no/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Afternoon-seminar-Wed-18April-at-Runde-programme.pdfPresentations were provided by ICES attendees, Norwegian researchers and representa-tives of marine energy development. Experiences on best practice were shared with a focus on more fully understanding the opportunities and challenges associated with the Norwegian experience.A manuscript drawing on these issues was progressed during the meeting. Considera-tion has also been given to future work required in order to provide input in relation to a potential request to ICES from OSPAR to “review the current state and knowledge of studies into the deployment and environmental impacts of wet renewable technologies and marine energy storage systems”. This is likely to be the priority for next year’s meeting.