Turning to ocean energy at ICOE OEE 2026

Earlier this week, The Oilholic also attended ICOE OEE 2026 - a global event on ocean energy being held in The Hague, Netherlands, whilst in town for another engagement. 

The International Conference on Ocean Energy (ICOE) and Ocean Energy Europe (OEE) joint event, supported by the Dutch Energy from Water Association (EWA), featured a conference programme with several technology and policy content streams. 

These were accompanied by networking events and site visits to key Dutch ocean energy sites and companies. The Oilholic viewed it as a great opportunity to meet key stakeholders in the ocean energy sector from the industry and supply chain firms to startups, research fellows to those leading corporate innovation and development.

The event offered a glimpse of "watts in the water" and how the various forms of ocean energy can potentially be amplified in service of a rapidly electrifying world. The discourse touched on the wider offshore energy ecosystem and inter-organisational collaboration that's shaping the next generation of clean ocean energy across tidal, wave and other marine energy applications. 

In a nudge to the hosts, delegates also got a showcase of research and the real-world impact of initiatives in South Netherlands.

Alongside these wide-ranging discussions, two analysis strands stood out for this blogger. The first one being pragmatic discussions on the commercialisation of ocean energy technologies and the various avenues under consideration to go down the cost curve.

Indeed, many attendees offered (and presented) approaches and strategies to reduce cost at every stage of the design and project development process of what are unsurprisingly big ticket projects.

The second one was the use of AI in ocean energy and deployment of digital twins. Real sea demonstrations are pretty complex and capital intensive projects in often intimidating operating environments. It is why the capacity to accurately model and predict how a system will behave is extremely valuable. That is where AI is proving to be pretty handy. 

ICOE OEE 2026 discussed these very AI solutions being deployed today in ocean energy to support modelling, develop predictive digital twins, and ultimately reduce operational costs and improve ocean energy devices.

Away from the dialogues and networking with industry peers, yours truly also took time out to visit the event's exhibition floor. This year's expo drew in nearly 40 exhibitors from the UK to Canada.

To round up an exciting few days of discussions, here's a parting thought from ICOE OEE 2026 - with, of course, the caveat of the investment climate attached - research suggests the tidal stream energy market carries an estimated global resource of 800-1,200 Twh that could replace nearly 13% of the world's fossil fuel powered electricity generation! Let's see where that ship sails. 

But that's all from The Hague for now folks. More market musings to follow soon. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'! 

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© Gaurav Sharma 2026. Photo I: An ICOE OEE 2026 showcasing session in The Hague, Netherlands, October 5, 2026. Photo II: Marine energy technology on display at ICOE OEE 2026. Photo III: Energy Analyst Gaurav Sharma at the ICOE OEE 2026, October 7, 2026 © Gaurav Sharma, October 2026.