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dset of a start-up to that of an industrial company marine energy R&D center in Chile, associated to
and series producer, from the mindset of a bu- the completion of an 8-year technical program. In
siness unit to that of an autonomous company France, Naval Energies has the presidency and
that must finance itself. But, the main challenge participates in France Energies Marines (FEM)
is still to wait for the Public Authorities in different projects. As a reminder, FEM is intended to con-
countries to launch these experimental cutting- tribute to the lifting of technology barriers in the
edge projects – but in the long term, we believe MRE (M…. R….. E…..) market by setting up colla-
this will be a big market! borative R&D projects between academics, indu-
strials, energy specialists and public authorities.
You are partially owned by big conglomera-
tes, the Naval Group and TechnipFMC, the Could you tell us a recent success story, of
latter a member of ANIMP. How do you see which you are particularly proud?
the relationship and the synergies with these On 8 November 2016, we have connected to the
giants? Canadian power grid the most powerful tidal tur-
As I said, Naval Group, the leader, has invested bine in the world, a 2 MW OpenHydro system,
over 300 M€ over the last decade. TechnipFMC which provided power to several hundred inhabit-
has been a more recent addition to our sharehol- ants in Nova Scotia over several months and re-
ding structure. We have several synergies with all sisted the strongest tide of the century. Probably,
our three partners, but of course, the common it is our best project so far, the one we are mostly
projects are confidential. proud of.

What could you tell us about your effort in fo- Is there a question I should have asked you,
stering innovation and R&D? To which extent and I did not?
do you cooperate with universities? Indeed, about our optimism for the future: it is
Naturally, the Universities provide big compo- sky-high! We are all very excited, very enthusiastic
nent to our overall development effort. In 2015, about our work – and we see an ocean of oppor-
we signed a joint statement with the Chilean go- tunities ahead of us!
vernment for the development of Meric, the first

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