OES Annual Report 2012 - Ocean Energy Systems

8
2.1 / MEMBERSHIP
The Implementing Agreement on Ocean Energy Systems (OES) was initiated by three countries in 2001.
As of December 2011, 19 countries are members of the OES: Portugal, Denmark, United Kingdom, Japan,
Ireland, Canada, the United States of America, Belgium, Germany, Norway, Mexico, Spain, Italy, New
Zealand, Sweden, Australia, Republic of Korea, South Africa and China ordered by sequence of joining the
Agreement (Figure 2).
The European Commission and Nigeria are concluding the process of joining the OES and Nigeria’s
membership will be formally confirmed by the CERT in February 2013.
In 2012, the Executive Committee unanimously voted to invite Singapore and to re-invite The Netherlands.
Communication continued with other countries invited to join the OES: Brazil, Chile, India, France,
Indonesia, Finland and Russia. Some efforts have been done to attract other countries with activities or
interest on ocean energy, such as Malaysia, Malta, Costa Rica and Cuba.
A key problem is identifying the appropriate parties in each country and internal government decisionmaking
processes in some countries, which tend to delay completion of the membership process.
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
0 5 10 15 20
FIG. 2: OES Membership Growth
Research
Organizations ; 3
Device/Project
Developers ; 3
Universities ; 3
Governmental
Departments ; 2
Industry
Associations ; 1
Governmental
Agencies ; 3
National Energy
Agencies ; 4
FIG. 3: Diversified representation of interests in the ExCo
National governments appoint a Contracting Party
to represent it on the ExCo. The Contracting Party
can be a government ministry or agency, a research
institute or university, an industry association or even
a private company. Governments also nominate
alternates, who may represent the government at
ExCo meetings, if the nominated representative
is unavailable. Consequently there is a diversified
representation of interests in the ExCo (Fig. 3). The
ExCo considers this diversity to be a key strength
of the organization and will strive to maintain this
balance of representation.
ANNUAL
REPORT 2012