The global market for Ocean Power is projected to reach 489.7 Thousand Kilowatts in Cumulative Capacity Addition by the year 2027, trailing a post COVID-19 CAGR of 35.4% over the analysis period 2020 through 2027. Ocean, one of nature's biggest renewable energy sources, has potential to corner a major share of global electricity mix. New interests and technological advancements are giving rise to new industry activity. Ocean energy, one of the most abundant and predictable sources of energy, is capable of supplying about 10% of the global electricity needs. While wave and tidal energy constitute the established ocean energy technologies, there also exist other technologies such as salinity gradient and ocean thermal energy conversion Tidal energy is broadly classified into tidal range and tidal stream energy. A mature technology, tidal range energy involves creation of large tidal barrages for generating electricity. Both tidal stream and wave energy are relatively new and evolving concepts and as such do not produce sufficient energy to attain grid parity level. Presently, only tidal barrages have the potential of having economies of scale through generation and sale of electricity. With average annual per capita fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions inching to 4.9 tones, It's time to look beyond fossil fuels for supporting humanity's energy needs. While the year 2020 is an anomaly, power consumption on an average has and will continue to spiral across both developed and developing economies in the coming years.

While electricity consumption and supply network across developed countries is strong and mature, a significant proportion of the population in several developing countries lacks access to electricity. About 16% of the global population still has no access to electricity. In sub-Saharan Africa and developing Asian countries, over 95% of the population has no access to electricity. This reflects a huge gap between demand and supply of electricity. With global population expected to massively by 2050, expansion and overhaul of existing electricity production facilities will become inevitable in order to address rapid acceleration in power consumption. Low and medium income countries outside the OECD group are expected to garner a lion's share of this population growth, owing to high GDP growth rates and disposable income levels, and rapid pace of industrialization and urbanization. The significant rise in electricity demand globally coupled with the depleting sources of fossil fuels is driving governments across the world to look towards alternate energy sources, specifically renewable technologies. It is in this scenario that renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and ocean are gaining popularity to address the surging electricity demand, and to meet the future energy needs of the world.

Wave energy is making progress with many demonstration and pilot projects globally, such as in China, Republic of Korea, the US, Sweden, and Spain. As of 2019, Europe has total wave energy capacity of 12 MW, of which about 2 MW is currently in the water and 10 MW has been decommissioned following the completion of testing programs. Cumulative installed capacity of wave energy increased steadily in Europe since 2013, reflecting the trends in R&D funding and technological advancements that encouraged bigger and better devices. In 2019, Europe installed 600 kW of wave energy in 2019, about 25% higher capacity additions than 2018. Sub-scale devices stood for about 50% of the total installations in 2019, with AMOG, Waves4Energy, and NEMOS, all installing devices of half-scale or below. The European Commission's Ocean Energy Forum achieved its main agenda in 2016, with the Ocean Energy Strategic Roadmap publication, which aims to create a path for the development of ocean energy market in Europe. Cross border, smaller-scale co-ordination is also present in Europe. Introduced in Europe in 2016, the FORESEAi project offers competitive funding opportunities to companies engaged in ocean energy technology, to install their systems at test centers in France, the Netherlands, Ireland, and the UK. With an overall US$11.3 million budget (more than 50% provided by the EU), the first phase of awards was performed in 2016, while another in 2017. Tidal energy is also gaining momentum with several implementations in Canada, France, and Scotland. Nova Innovation in Scotland, along with ELSA, its Belgium-based partner, were operating the first tidal array (grid-connected) in the world that is equipped with two 100 kW M 100 direct-drive turbines installed in Bluemull Sound of Shetland. In 2017, a third turbine was deployed. At the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Scotland, Scotrenewables Tidal Power deployed a 2MW SR2000 turbine, which is considered to be the largest tidal turbine in the world. It is an integrated tidal energy generator which has two horizontal-axis turbines placed on a floating hull platform.