(IEC: Geneva) – The International Electrotechnical Commission, the global body for electrical energy standards, is recruiting experts from around the world to develop international standards for wave and tidal energy technology that will help establish this promising source of renewable energy as a competitive form of electrical energy production.

In February 2007, the IEC’s standardization management board (SMB) set up a strategy group to study energy efficiency and renewable energies. In the May edition of IEC’s Technical Committee News, it was reported that the SMB was to decide on how to deal with renewable energy activities in the IEC. At the June SMB meeting a presentation was given by Dr. Gouri Bhuyan, chairman of the International Energy Agency’s Ocean Energy Systems Executive Committee, whose present program focuses on ocean waves and marine currents.

The decision taken by the SMB at that meeting was to set up an entirely new committee, “TC 114: Marine Energy— Wave and Tidal Energy Converters(IEC TC 114),” to develop international standards for wave and tidal energy technology that will help establish this promising source of renewable energy as a competitive form of electrical energy production.

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