Tony Lewis receives Ocean Energy Europe’s Vi Maris award

Tony Lewis has been working in and for the ocean energy sector for over 40 years. The ‘father of ocean energy’, Tony is currently the Chief Technology Officer at OceanEnergy, a member of the Board of Ocean Energy Europe, a Principal Investigator in MaREI and Professor Emeritus in University College Cork, Ireland and a globally recognised expert on ocean energy systems. 

Tony continues to have an illustrious career in ocean energy. He spearheaded the development of the MaREI Centre in Ireland, a world-leading research centre for energy, climate and marine energy. He is a member of the Irish Mirror Committee (TC18) of the IEC TC114 Technical Committee responsible for developing standards for ocean energy systems. He was one of the founding members of Ocean Energy Europe, and has served as Board Secretary for the past 9 years. He received the Chevalier des Palmes Académiques, a national order of France for distinguished academics in 2017. 

Tony and OceanEnergy will deploy a 1MW wave energy converter at the US navy wave energy test site in Hawaii in 2023, and are currently coordinating the WEDUSEA project, which brings together 14 industry partners from across Europe to work together to commercialise wave energy by demonstrating a second grid connected 1MW WEC, named OE35, in Orkney, Scotland. 

A shortlist of nominees was considered by a panel of Ocean Energy Europe board members, who voted by secret ballot for the winner. 

Tony Lewis said: “It is a great honour for me to receive the Vi Maris award for 2023 from Ocean Energy Europe. I would like to thank my colleagues for recognising my life’s work on wave and tidal energy. We all realise how important the development of this huge untapped energy resource is to climate change and energy security for the future.” 

Rémi Gruet, Ocean Energy Europe’s CEO, added: “I have met many great people in the last 10 years working with the ocean energy sector, and Tony is certainly at the very top of the list. His half-century long contribution to advancing ocean energy science and technology is recognised by peers and competitors alike, in academia and business. His support for Ocean Energy Europe has greatly helped us understand and communicate why and how ocean energy has a role to play in tomorrow’s electricity system. And while doing all that, and despite all awards and decorations, Tony has remained as approachable as he’s always been, someone you will always learn from, a model for many of us!”