Marina Miceli
Europe Press Office,London
Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Alex White T.D., performed the “Topping Out” ceremony at the UCC Beaufort building in Ringaskiddy, Co. Cork.
The “topping out” marks a construction milestone for the building, which is set to house the largest dedicated team of marine researchers globally. It is on schedule to open in July 2015.
Minister White said that Ireland has the potential to become the focal point of the international marine renewable industry, pointing out that the marine renewable energy sector could be worth €9 billion by 2030 and support significant job creation in Ireland.
The project is a flagship research facility integrating three existing research entities, the Hydraulics and Maritime Research Centre (HMRC), the Coastal Marine Research Centre (CMRC) and the Sustainable Energy Research Group (SERG).
It comprises a 4-storey office and research building servicing a state of the art wave tank testing facility which houses three watertight reinforced concrete research tanks – the largest of which covers an area of 480m² and extends 4m below finished floor level. The laboratory will be dedicated to multidisciplinary research and knowledge transfer to support sustainable resource development and innovation in the maritime field, including areas such as ocean energy, coastal governance and energy storage.
We are part of a multidisciplinary design team, providing civil, structural, geotechnical, environmental, traffic engineering and flood engineering consultancy on the project.
