Tide-Powered Charging Stations for Off-Grid Applications

Aegis Technology Inc has teamed up with an end-user partner, Barret Energy Resources Group LLC (BERG), and a waterfront coastal community, Town Hull, Massachusetts to co-develop a novel class of small-scale and low-cost tidal turbine systems that can supply power to off-grid charge stations for electric vehicles and electric boats (EV/EB). Aegis is a technology company that specializes in the development of innovative marine energy technologies and devices to harvest marine hydrokinetic (MHK) energies. BERG is a company based in Massachusetts that specializes in permitting and developing clean energy projects. Hull is a small coastal town that sits at the waterfront of the Boston Harbor. The Town Hull government is a DOE-recognized leader in advancing the use of clean renewable energies. Boston Harbor and its adjacent waters have some well-known tidal energy resources in the continental US coastlines that are currently untapped. With a common goal of unlocking the power of tidal energy, Aegis, BERG, and Town Hull have partnered together to develop and deploy a demonstration tidal turbine system to supply power to off-grid EV/EB charge stations. The first demonstration unit will output 5kW of electricity at the tidal flow speed of 2m/s. It will be deployed at the windmill point of the Hull Gut that is famous for its tidal flows. This project, if successful, will be the first tide-powered off-grid EV/EB charge station in the US. It will also find many other applications in the blue economy, such as tide-powered ocean observation sensors and tide-powered charge stations for unmanned underwater or surface vessels (UUV/USV). To cut the system cost, a partially submerged tidal turbine system is proposed. For each modular system, two tidal turbines are mounted on a floating plaftform to capture the tidal energy in both tidal flow directions. One big advanrage of our technology approach is that the gearboxes and genrators are placed on the floating platform above the water. Only the turbine blades are submerged in the water. This allows us to significantly reduce the need and cost for system operation and maintenance. The research in Phase I will focus on the design, build, and test of a reduced scale turbine system for proof- of-concept and for validation of system performance. This will pave the way for the deveopment and deployment of a full-scale 5kW tidal turbine system in Phase II. Other tasks in Phase I include project permitting application and broader curstomer discovery. Although our initial application is focused on the tide-powered EV/EB charge stations, the technology developed can also find many other applications in the blue economy. It can provide power for (1) Ocean observation sensors for customers such as DOE, NOAA, Navy, and scientific communities, (2) Remote homes and islanded communites, (3) Disaster preparedness and recovery in coastal areas, and (4) underwater charging stations for unmanned underwater or surface vessels.