Market Development
SNMREC has a vision to transform southeast Florida into the world’s premier marine energy technology hub. Leveraging unique natural, infrastructure and community resources, global partners, established industry leadership, and financial incentives, the goal is to grow a highly diverse and sustainable regional cleantech industry. The tactics to achieve this vision include: (1) strategically growing a local vertical market by incentivizing and coordinating co-location of downstream and upstream suppliers; (2) facilitating investments in key infrastructure such as electric transmission system upgrades and port expansion to enable marine energy technology uptake; (3) establishing specialized workforce development programs at regional community colleges and universities; (4) working to create a performance metric-based revolving loan fund to provide financing for sector-specific small businesses; and (5) expanding R&D capacity to fill socio-economic, environmental, and technical gaps needed for commercialization.
Aligned with both the Florida Strategic Plan for Economic Development and the region’s CEDS, this initiative answers the call to action to transition Florida’s economy so that it is driven by innovation. It will help the regional economy recover from the pandemic and other historic economic difficulties, will build economic diversity by attracting new businesses as well as driving new contracts to existing local businesses, will build resiliency both economically and in terms of electric generation by diversifying major industries, and will create high-quality jobs with better than current local median wages, thus revitalizing southeast Florida communities and positioning them for resiliency. Because southeast Florida’s population is located along a narrow corridor nestled between the Everglades and Atlantic Ocean, most, if not all communities are potential direct beneficiaries of marine energy development. The two primary categories of future partner employers are marine energy technology companies, the businesses who will manufacture and sell turbines or other equipment to generate electricity from offshore, and marine service providers and suppliers who provide equipment and services needed by marine energy technology companies and offshore project developers. SNMREC aims to engage the private sector to establish a strong alignment between industry needs and the regional industry cluster vision. Strong leadership and participation from the private sector will ensure that a growth cluster is established with a solid foundation that can be self-sustained long term.
SNMREC’s preliminary private sector engagement strategy is based upon a framework that is driven not by economic development organizations, but by academic and corporate leaders with deep industry ties and expertise in marine energy. Cluster success can be achieved by engaging business leadership in “pre-competitive collaboration” to coalesce the private sector around a shared commitment to growing the marine energy industry (with the understanding that collective efforts help individual companies attract talent, access innovation, and provide essential infrastructure needed by all). By prioritizing private sector stakeholder involvement, a systems approach can be used rather than being driven by the region’s political dynamics, allowing for strategic long-term planning. The team will aim to convene an advisory body comprised of corporate, academic, community and philanthropic leaders that emphasizes representation from the entire marine energy vertical market and community leaders.
Future commercial marine energy projects will involve a variety of stakeholders. Some will be directly involved in managing the risk or receiving direct benefit from these new electricity sources. Without them, the ecosystem would not be sufficient to sustain long term robust markets. Recognizing this need and that SNMREC is well positioned to facilitate market development, it has undertaken to lead to its establishment.
Working with the new State of Florida Office of Ocean Economy and the U.S. Economic Development Agency-designated Risk and Reslience Tech Hub, SNMREC is leveraging existing and new coastal economic sectors to ensure that supply chain, market and policy conditions, regulatory framework, and public awareness needed for marine energy to become established are present.
In the process of acquiring the permits needed for its offshore activities, SNMREC works with local, state, and federal agencies to develop appropriate protocols for marine energy regualtory approvals. These efforts help to inform regulatory frameworks that either do not previously exist or have not been used that commercial project will need. For example, in 2014, the U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued the first U.S. marine energy lease to FAU. The application, regulatory process and findings, and other information can be found at the BOEM Florida Activities page.