Upcoming Deadlines
Looking for more detailed information on the latest funding opportunities and events related to water power? Make sure you subscribe to The Water Wire! Find the next issue in your inbox on July 12, 2023.
Products & Publications
Deadline Approaching for Topic Area 2 Concept Papers for Tidal and Current Energy Systems Funding Opportunity: WPTO is accepting concept papers for the second topic area in its U.S. Tidal Energy Advancement funding opportunity. This topic area will provide up to $10 million to support a community-led tidal and/or current energy planning and development project. The deadline to submit concept papers is 5 p.m. ET on July 13, 2023. Applicants must submit a concept paper to be eligible to submit a full application.
TEAMER Announces Latest Round of Technical Support Recipients: The TEAMER program selected 10 projects to support through its ninth request for technical support, reflecting a total funding amount of more than $1.2 million. These projects will receive support for testing expertise, access to numerical modeling, laboratory or bench testing, tank/flume testing, and expertise within the growing TEAMER facility network. The deadline to submit applications for request for technical support 10 is July 7, 2023.
WPTO Celebrates World Oceans Day and National Ocean Month: In honor of World Oceans Day (June 8) and National Ocean Month (June), three experts from WPTO discussed why they love the ocean and how this massive body is proving to be a key resource in fighting climate change and achieving a carbon-free energy grid. The experts discussed benefits and applications of marine energy and what the ocean means to them personally.
Meet the Winners of the 2023 Marine Energy Collegiate Competition: WPTO recently announced the University of New Hampshire as the overall winner of the 2023 Marine Energy Collegiate Competition, which culminated in a final event at Waterpower Week in Washington, D.C. Tasking undergraduate and graduate students with developing unique marine energy solutions, this competition helps prepare the future water power workforce. Teams pitched their business plans, detailed technology designs to panels of judges, and presented their approaches to creating connections among the industry and their local communities. In addition to announcing this year’s winners, WPTO also selected the teams to compete in the 2024 competition.
Swim Your Own Adventure—PNNL Creates Marine Energy Adventure Game: Check out the new Marine Energy Adventure game developed by PNNL and experience what it’s like when marine life encounters marine energy devices. As a fish, choose your own adventure and discover what happens if you swim too close to a tidal turbine!
WPTO Announces $1.2 Million in Funding for National Laboratory Projects to Further Marine Energy Research: WPTO recently announced $1.2 million in funding for 23 projects to further research and development of marine energy technologies at DOE's national laboratories. These projects are known as "seedlings" and are funded under WPTO's Seedlings and Saplings program, which encourages national laboratory researchers to expand their research roadmaps and explore outside-of-the-box ideas in water power.
New, Public Data Helps Advance Wave-Powered Desalination Systems: Since the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) deployed its first wave-powered desalination device in North Carolina's Outer Banks, WPTO and the lab have been working to make the device’s data publicly available on a dedicated webpage. WPTO and the lab hope to support the development of wave energy systems by making validated designs and proven solutions more accessible for marine energy stakeholders and developers, leading to solutions for communities that need access to both fresh water and reliable clean energy. Learn more about the device deployments and newly available open-source data.
After Working Across the Energy Sector, Patrick O'Byrne Has Found a Home in Tidal Energy (For Now): After he graduated college with an engineering degree, Patrick O'Byrne traveled across the country to repair power plants and restore electricity when an outage occurred. But after a 100-day stretch on the road, he realized it was time for a change. Now, as a water power intern at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, O'Byrne studies and constructs tidal energy technologies.
Tour a Virtual Island Run on Water Power: This National Ocean Month, take a tour of NREL's water power research on Renewable Energy Discovery (REDi) Island, and discover the ways water can help power our communities, monitor our environment, and even provide clean drinking water. This virtual island hosts many areas, including Tidal Town, where you can see how underwater turbines create usable energy for nearby communities; Desalination Station, where you can explore innovative system for creating drinking water using only wave power; and Research Reef, which shows how clean wave energy can power ongoing ocean observations. Visit REDi Island to discover all the possibilities!
The Triton Initiative Takes Marine Energy Research to New Heights: Unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with cameras have proven to be key tools in monitoring marine wildlife at marine energy test sites. However, UAVs can only be in the air for 20 to 30 minutes because of their limited battery life. These short flight durations can make it difficult to locate marine mammals that may only come to the surface periodically to take a breath. By using helium-based meteorological tethered balloon systems, the Triton team was able to extend UAVs' flight times from minutes to weeks. Read how these balloon-powered UAVs will help improve environmental monitoring.ch, WPTO showcased stories from six water power champions who are on the frontlines of building an equitable and just energy future. Learn about their work, advice they wish they had earlier in their careers, and their thoughts on ways to create more diversity in the water power workforce.
|
Events
Ocean Renewable Energy Conference 2023
HAPPENING NOW (June 21-22, 2023), Portland, Oregon
At the Ocean Renewable Energy Conference in Portland, Oregon? WPTO and lab speakers will be featured in several sessions across the conference, which will focus on a broad range of subjects to help the marine energy sector stay up to date on key developments such as testing infrastructure and blue economy opportunities. View the full schedule and confirmed speakers.
WPTO R&D Deep Dive: Holding it Together—Marine Fasteners and Corrosion Concerns
June 29, 2023, 2 p.m. ET, Online
Many marine energy devices are built in a modular fashion, to be assembled on site before their deployment. This means that one of the keys to a marine device's success can be some of the smallest parts—the connectors that hold these pieces together. Join researchers from Sandia National Laboratory and Florida Atlantic University to hear about the testing program being used to investigate how different fasteners and interconnects hold up to marine conditions and to provide feedback on this ongoing program.
InDEEP Competitor Webinar Series: Technology Performance Level Assessment
July 5, 2023, 11 a.m. ET, Online
InDEEP will award up to $2.3 million in cash prizes to teams that use innovative methods to identify successful distributed embedded energy converter technology components and materials that show the greatest techno-economic potential for wave energy to contribute to grid-scale power systems. Join the final training webinar to learn the ins and outs of the tool that will help assess concepts and must be used to submit part of Phase I submission packages. The webinar will also feature a Q&A session.
WPTO Water-Energy Nexus Workshop
July 25, 2023, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. ET, Online
The Water-Energy Nexus highlights the interdependence of water and energy resources. Water power technologies depend on water management activities to operate sustainably and, by coordinating tradeoffs between energy and water systems, can play an impactful role in supporting resource synergies. In this context, the co-development of water power can advance mutual goals for different stakeholder groups, especially to support energy and water equity. Join this workshop to learn more about the nexus and WPTO's strategy for this space, as well as to provide input on the objectives, questions, and directions WPTO is developing.
In Case You Missed It
WPTO Seedling Grows into Full Paper: After receiving funding through WPTO's Seedlings and Saplings Program in 2020, a project focused on estimating the annual energy production for marine energy devices from short tidal current records published a paper highlighting the progress the project team has made to date. The paper shared that the accuracy of annual energy production estimation does not necessarily improve with longer tidal current records, and the annual energy production assessment is improved by following optimal strategies for short record measurements. The current recommended length of time to measure a device’s annual energy production is 90 days, but the team found that longer periods of time may result in more accurate and optimal measurements. WPTO is supporting follow-up activities to this work through a Sapling project titled, Improvement of Measurement Methods for Tidal Energy Annual Energy Production.
WPTO Participates in Ocean Energy Webinar Hosted by Prime Movers Lab: Beth Hartman, WPTO's Strategic Innovation and Outreach Program Manager, recently participated in a webinar with experts from Bedrock Ocean Exploration, CorPower Ocean, and CalWave to discuss the importance of marine energy to support a clean energy grid and blue economy. Speakers discussed the current status of marine energy technologies, where those technologies could be deployed, and how they could be applied commercially. The webinar also discussed opportunities for wave and tidal energy through the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
WPTO Powering the Blue Economy Initiative Endorsed by U.N.: WPTO’s Powering the Blue Economy Initiative was endorsed by the United Nations' (U.N.) Ocean Decade Alliance. The U.N. highlighted how the initiative seeks to understand the power requirements of emerging coastal and maritime markets and encourage international collaboration on the advancement of technologies that could integrate ocean renewable energy to relieve these power constraints and enable sustainable growth of the global blue economy.
Social Spotlight
Follow along on the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook channels for more water power content each week.
Making a Splash in the News
-
C-Power Set to Launch SeaRAY AOPS for Ocean Trials in Hawaii, Offshore Energy, Amir Garanovic, June 13, 2023
-
White House Announces New 'Ocean Justice Strategy', Lexology, Greta T. Carlson and Samuel B. Boxerman, June 13, 2023
-
United States Hands Out $1.2M for Marine Energy R&D Projects, Offshore Energy, Amir Garanovic, June 8, 2023
Marine Mentions
-
ORE Catapult to Provide Guidance on Seabed Change, reNews, Staff Writer, June 13, 2023
-
How Wave Energy Can Help Transform America's Ports, Triple Pundit, Tina Casey, June 13, 2023
-
CRIMSON Tidal Energy Project Enters Next Phase, Offshore Energy, Amir Garanovic, June 12, 2023
-
New IEA-OES Report Spotlights Advances in Wave Energy Sector, Offshore Energy, Amir Garanovic, June 7, 2023
-
Jacobs Completes Underground Infrastructure Engineering for US Wave Energy Test Site, Offshore Energy, Amir Garanovic, June 7, 2023
-
Sabella Welcomes Drivetrains for TIGER Project Tidal Turbines, Offshore Energy, Amir Garanovic, June 7, 2023
-
California State Senate Passes Wave and Tidal Energy Bill, Renewables Now, Ivan Shumkov, May 26, 2023
-
C-Power Wraps Up In-Harbor Trials of SeaRAY Device, Offshore Energy, Amir Garanovic, May 24, 2023
-
IEA-OES Highlights Tidal Energy Development in Latest Brochure, Offshore Energy, Ajsa Habibic, May 23, 2023
|
