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Electricity generation by tidal current and wave power arrays represents a radical innovation and is confronted by significant technological and financial challenges. Currently, the marine energy sector finds itself in a decisive transition phase having developed full-scale technology demonstrators but still lacking proof of the concept in a commercial project environment. After the decades-long development process with larger than expected setbacks and delays, investors are discouraged because of high capital requirements and the uncertainty of future revenues. In order to de-risk the technology and to accelerate the commercialisation process, we identified stakeholder-wide balanced and realisable strategic targets. The objective is to name the top-level drivers for facilitating technology maturation and thus achieving market acceptance. Our analysis revealed that the two major risks for multi-megawatt projects (funding and device performance) are directly interlinked and that coordinated action is required to overcome this circular relationship. As funding is required for improving device performance (and vice-versa), showcasing an "array-scale success" was identified as the interim milestone on the way towards commercial generation. By this game-changing event, both mentioned risk complexes will be simultaneously mitigated. We observed that system dynamics modelling is appropriate for an unbiased analysis of complex multi-level expert interview data. The applied research model was found to be efficient and allows a regular re-assessment of the strategic alignment thus supporting the adaptation to a complex and continuously changing socio-technical environment.

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a b s t r a c tTidal current and wave power have made substantial progress towards commercialisation. Based on the successful testing of full-scale prototypes, pioneering tidal arrays are currently implemented by means of direct agreements between developers/ investors and device manufacturers. The top-ranked risks for commercial projects (identified as achieving funding and uncertainty in device performance) are directly intercorrelated as investor confidence mainly depends on track records of continuous device operation. Before becoming recognised as a fully mature electricity generation method, marine energy needs to prove a range of referenceable project cases. The attainment of this array-scale success will represent a major turning point for the global marine energy business and is expected to finally trigger large-scale deployment.

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