Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Energy has selected winners of its Wave Energy Prize, awarding Portland-based AquaHarmonics its top prize of $1.5 million for the group's point-absorber energy technology.
- CalWave Power Technologies, which focused on deep-water power generation, was awarded the second prize of $500,000.
- The 18-month design-build-test competition aimed to reduce the cost of wave energy. DOE officials called AquaHarmonics project a "technology leap" forward.
Dive Insight:
More than half of the United States population lives within 50 miles of coastline, but wave-energy technology has thus far been cost prohibitive at large scale. However the DOE hopes to move the technology forward through this program, and has tapped three technologies for further development, envisioning a future of clean energy along the country's coast.
In addition to AquaHarmonics and CalWave, competitor Waveswing America took third place in the competition and won $250,000.
“This competition set a difficult threshold of doubling the energy captured from ocean waves, and four teams surpassed that goal," said Lynn Orr, DOE’s Under Secretary for Science and Energy.
But the projects haven't always proven successful. From 2008 to 2015, DOE’s program awarded an estimated $136 million for 92 MHK energy projects, according to the Department’s recent project update. Yet there are no U.S. commercial installations and few pilots with real promise.
More than 90 teams registered for the competition in spring 2015, with judges ultimately identifying nine finalists and a pair of alternates. Those teams received up to $125,000 to build scaled prototypes of their wave energy converter devices. The devices were then tested at the Naval Surface Warfare Center's Maneuvering and Seakeeping Basin at Carderock, Md. The top prize was awarded to the project farthest along in development.
