Research group

Ocean Energy

Offshore wind turbines producing renewable and green energy

We bring together experts addressing energy challenges from the perspectives of technology, the environment, society, finance, and policy. Our aim is to unlock the potential of ocean renewable energy.

About

The Ocean Energy Special Interest Group (SIG) serves as a hub at the University of Southampton for matters related to the role of seas and oceans in decarbonizing the economy. It also helps achieve net-zero goals worldwide.

Research areas

Our topics of interest are centred around technological, environmental, societal, financial, and policy challenges related to:

  • harvesting of renewable energies (eg offshore wind, wave, freestream tidal energy, tidal barrages and floating solar systems)
  • storage and transformation of offshore energy (eg energy islands, H2 creation)
  • sustainable decommissioning of oil and gas infrastructures

Oceans are pivotal in the world strategy to meet the net-zero objectives, by providing abundant and clean sources of renewable energy. However, the full exploitation of this energy resource faces many challenges of diverse nature. These include the harsh offshore environment, sharing the ocean with many stakeholders, and evolving policy and regulations. Most importantly, it is essential to avoid mistakes of the past and wild industrialisation of our seas and oceans.

Vision and aims

Our vision is to bring together people and skills from across the university and many fields of research to develop transdisciplinary approaches for sustainable ocean energy exploitation. We do this through:

  • fostering research collaboration between faculties and fields of research
  • fostering collaboration with non-academic stakeholders and serving as a contact point for ocean energy matters
  • raising awareness of ocean energy challenges and showcasing how the University of Southampton is working to address these challenges through research, knowledge exchange and other means

Activities

Our events and opportunities are designed in line with the goals we aim to achieve. They include a combination of internal and external activities, such as:

  • themed workshops or lectures bringing together academic and non-academic partners
  • sandpit activities to lay the foundations of interdisciplinary grant application or paper writing
  • invited lectures on case studies from industry
  • development of educational material or media briefings

To find out more about the Ocean Energy Special Interest Group and what we do, get in touch with group champion Dr Luke Myers.

Join the SMMI Community to sign up to this group, and any others of interest to you.

Research highlights

Making offshore carbon storage safe

A team of researchers in Southampton played a key role in a European project to determine the viability of safely and securely storing carbon offshore.

Optimising power transfer for renewable energy

Our researchers are running a series of projects to optimise the design of marine high voltage cables, used in offshore windfarms, to maximise power transfer and save money.

People, projects and publications

People

Emeritus Professor Donna Davies

Research interests

  • Mechanisms of lung diseases
  • Viral-induced exacerbations of lung disease
  • Asthma

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Donna

Professor Eileen Yu

Professor of Chemical Engineering

Research interests

  • Electrochemical, bioelectrochemical systems for Energy and Environmental applications
  • Biosensor and Bioelectronics for Biomedical Applications
  • Materials for Electro and Bioelectrochemical systems

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Eileen

Dr Eli Lazarus

Associate Professor

Research interests

  • coastal and fluvial dynamics
  • geomorphology
  • human-environmental coupled systems

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Eli

Professor Emily Reid

Professor of Intl Economic Law & Sus Dev

Research interests

  • International Economic Law
  • Trade and Sustainability

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Emily

Professor Emma Roe

Professor of More-Than-Human Geographies

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Emma

Professor Emma Tompkins PhD

Prof of Geog, Environment & Development

Research interests

  • How households and businesses are adapting to climate and weather hazards
  • Monitoring real-time adaptation to hydro-meteorological/climate hazards,  (including compound and cascading hazards)
  • Methods to assess the effectiveness of climate adaptations

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Emma

Dr Erisa Karafili

Associate Professor

Research interests

  • Formal methods techniques applied to security problems
  • Attributing and investigating Cyber Attacks
  • Threat Models for IoT devices and Hybrid systems

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Erisa

Dr Esther Sumner

Associate Professor
Connect with Esther

Dr Fangsheng Ge PhD

Lecturer in Management Science

Research interests

  • Maritime Transportation
  • Supply Chain Management
  • Mathematical/Statistical modelling

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Fangsheng
Benjamin Cerfontaine
Associate Professor
Developing sustainable and cost-efficient anchoring technologies for floating offshore wind, wave and tidal energy is essential to enable net-zero objectives.
Luke Myers
Associate Professor
Marine energy presents an engineering challenge, it is difficult to do but the rewards could be access to a secure and huge energy resource.

Related research institutes, centres and groups

Related research institutes, centres and groups

Connect with us

Enquiries

If you're interested in joining us or collaborating, get in touch with the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute.