Leveraging Co-Development for the Energy Capture Subsystem of a Small-Scale Adaptive Wave Energy Converter

The ocean energy industry is blazing a new path to sustainable, scalable and more efficient marine hydrokinetic energy by focusing on small-scale applications. The ocean technology sector needs commercially successful products in small-scale energy to fuel the research and development needed to discover the generation methods and supporting technologies (like adaptive mechanisms) that will unlock scalable wave energy production. This project is focused on small-scale power needs at sea for scientific/maritime buoys and moorings, off shore aquaculture, and coastal security and defense. This project will fabricate the world’s first adaptive ocean wave energy converter. It will adjust to seasonal ambient sea states in order to produce more power. The device is a plug-and-play independent power unit that can be installed on most oceanographic buoys. Incumbent power supplies for small-scale applications at sea perform sub-optimally. Their routine maintenance cost can be orders of magnitude larger than the initial unit costs. These challenges severely limit advances in ocean sciences, defense & security monitoring and offshore aquaculture. Ocean wave energy is a natural choice for many use cases, but most wave energy devices are not designed for small scale applications, and they can only function within a narrow range of sea states. When compared to its counterparts and incumbent solutions, this innovative technology can increase power availability and lower power system maintenance cost, as well as perform under a variety of sea states. The Phase II project demonstrated the technical and commercial feasibility of the technology through an iterative process of analysis, simulation, and experimentation with commercial partners. The overall purpose of Phase IIA is to (1) reduce the size and weight of the mechanical components, (2) reduce the overall cost of low-quantity manufacturing of units, (3) continue to increase the efficiency of the power production subsystems, and (4) conduct a field deployment of the technology paid by a commercial customer. In the future, as this project is carried into Phase III and beyond, it will benefit multiple agencies’ ocean observing objectives. This technology will meet power demands in ocean observation and enable big-data capabilities in the blue economy. These capabilities will also directly support internationally coordinated, multi-decade, ocean-focused efforts.