Over 750 internationally renowned experts and representatives from the world's leading companies met in Dublin's Convention Centre, to kick-off what has been hailed as 'the world's largest conference on ocean energy.

Opening the conference, Pat Rabbitte TD, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, stated that: "Renewable energy will play an important part of discussions during Ireland's Presidency of the EU in 2013.

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"Drawing on research which has shown that Ireland has renewable potential many times the size of our relatively small island electricity system, the Minister continued: "As we move from today's national based, stand-alone energy systems, to a more interconnected and integrated single European energy market, we now have a real opportunity to go beyond providing for our own needs and to develop our abundant natural resources to become a renewable electricity exporter of scale."

(CD)