WASHINGTON, Jan. 13, 2016 - The Department of Energy (DOE) recently
announced six organizations selected to receive up to $10.5 million to
support the design and operation for next-generation marine energy systems. The
grants are part of DOE’s marine
and hydrokinetic (MHK) technology research and development efforts to
harness the largely untapped renewable energy in waves, tidal, ocean and river
currents that could provide clean, affordable energy to homes and businesses
across the country's coastal regions.
Projects funded under
these awards will improve survivability characteristics and reduce uncertainty
regarding installation, operations and maintenance of MHK systems operating in
potentially harsh marine conditions, which will extend lifespans and reduce the
cost of MHK-derived energy, DOE says.
The improvements supported by this funding will help these
devices last longer, cost less to maintain and capture even more sustainable
energy from the enormous potential
of the nation's oceans and rivers, according to DOE.
Three projects are aimed at
improving the survivability of wave energy converters, addressing the
challenges of designing MHK energy systems to operate in the ocean environment
for years:
- Dehlsen Associates LLC, of Santa
Barbara, California, is developing a wave energy converter (WEC) comprised
of multiple pods that use common components to achieve economies of scale.
In this project, the device structure will be optimized to improve its
survivability characteristics, thus significantly reducing the cost of
energy derived from the WEC.
- M3 Wave LLC, of Salem, Oregon,
is developing a WEC that sits on the ocean floor and harnesses energy from
the pressure waves beneath ocean waves. This project will develop modeling
tools to explore ways to minimize effects of sediment transport, such as
water erosion, displacement, and tilting of the device, and to increase
the lifetime of the system by reducing maintenance requirements in
commercial-scale deployments.
- Oscilla Power Inc., of Seattle,
is developing a WEC consisting of a surface float that is tethered to a
base suspended in the water. This projects aims to optimize the device's
storm-survival configurations, which will decrease the loads the device
experiences during extreme conditions, thus lowering the resulting cost of
energy.
Three additional projects will
reduce uncertainty regarding marine installation, operations, and maintenance (IO&M):
- Columbia Power Technologies,
Inc., of Charlottesville, Virginia, will develop and deploy a streamlined,
cost-effective installation and recovery process that includes design
updates and process improvements related to IO&M, while deploying the
floating, offshore WEC. The team also aims to identify specific methods to
reduce the cost of energy in future deployments.
- Igiugig Village Council, in
southwestern Alaska, will develop a river turbine system that will
demonstrate IO&M design improvements to simplify maintenance and make
system components more durable during operations.
- Verdant Power Inc., of New York
City will design and support structures to allow for cost-effective
IO&M. This will provide a way to deploy three turbines together as a
single system and make it possible to retrieve all three turbines with one
on-water operation.
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