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SNL Support for Kearns and West FOA 1837
Lead Companies
Sandia National Laboratories
Lead Researcher (s)
- Jesse Roberts
The few wave and tidal (i.e., MHK) projects that have been licensed and permitted in the United States have been challenged by a lack of a clear understanding of potential environmental effects and mutual understanding of the regulatory pathway. Due to the low number of installed and operating projects, regulators across federal, state, and local jurisdictions in many regions are relatively unfamiliar with MHK technologies, their potential environmental effects and available strategies for mitigation and monitoring. Additionally, the developers themselves, who are typically responsible for framing the project for regulators, often lack the information and tools for establishing a productive dialog with regulators. This project compiles existing environmental information from wide ranging data sources which are currently difficult to find across several sources. Further, by engaging with experts, both nationally and internationally, across academic, government, non-profit and industry sectors the information is brought into a suite of tools, i.e., the Toolkit. The Toolkit will be accessible via the project’s web Portal where environmental information relevant to a potential project site and topics of interest can be readily accessed in support of the most expeditious permitting process, especially to address regulatory needs.
Technology Application
Marine Energy
Research Category
Environmental and Sustainability
Research Sub-Category
Regulatory Process
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
2022
- Marine Energy
SNL Wave-SPARC Prize Support
Lead Companies
Sandia National Laboratories
Lead Researcher (s)
- Jesse Roberts
The goal of this WaveSPARC prize scoping project to maximize the beneficial impact of a thriving WaveSPARC community. This prize may be funded in the near future. Diligent prize preparation under a formal prize is necessary but not sufficient. Thorough derisking of the most challenging and novel elements of the prize and setting the groundwork for the prize to achieve its core values is essential. WaveSPARC has been a lab-led effort since 1 October 2014 focused on spurring early-stage marine energy innovation that can be further developed by industry for commercial applications. WaveSPARC provides innovation and assessment tools to support grid-scale wave energy converter (WEC) design concepts with high technology performance levels and low technology readiness levels. It has developed publicly accessible techno-economic assessment tools, novel WEC concepts, and functional requirements for WEC arrays. By introducing a WaveSPARC Prize, the publicly available and well-received tools created by WaveSPARC would be further propagated and utilized by those within the marine energy industry, as well as associated industries such as materials and soft robotics, among others. The prize would also help spur innovation and collaboration in WEC designs that follow WaveSPARC methodologies.
Technology Application
Marine Energy
Research Category
Technology
Research Sub-Category
Wave
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
Expected 2022
- Marine Energy
SPA I and II: Supporting HQ Evaluation of Awardee Technical Progress in Controls and Structures
Lead Companies
Sandia National Laboratories
Lead Researcher (s)
- Jesse Roberts
One of the DOE Water Power Technologies Office’s (WPTO) focuses has been in advancing technology performance by making investments in component technology improvements that enhance the performance of MHK systems. Sandia National Laboratories has been supporting DOE and Awardees of the MHK SPA FOAs, DE-FOA-0000848 and DE-FOA-0001182 (SPA I and SPA II, respectively). Starting in FY19, Sandia began support of DOE and awardees of the DE-FOA-0001837 Topic Area 2 “Controls and Power Take Off (PTO) Design Integration and Testing” (typically referenced as SPA III). Sandia’s expertise will be utilized in assisting DOE’s tracking of the technical progress and providing technical support to the Awardees where appropriate. Sandia will support DOE’s independent assessment of the component performance metrics that will be validated as part of the system test for each of the Awardees. Sandia will also support broader performance metrics initiatives.
Technology Application
Marine Energy
Research Category
Technology
Research Sub-Category
Hydrokinetic
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
Expected 2023
- Marine Energy
Standards Development
Lead Companies
Sandia National Laboratories
Lead Researcher (s)
- Vince Neary
This project focuses on collecting and analyzing data to inform standards and certification development efforts by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Technical Committee (TC) 114 Ocean Energy. IEC TC114 is responsible for developing standards that define the international requirements for all ocean energy devices in the future. Participation, including reviewing and proposing data-based improvements to recommended standards, in these groups is essential because such interactions broaden and streamline adoption of marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) devices in the global marketplace and ensure that the interests of the U.S. industry and the DOE are established and maintained.
Technology Application
Marine Energy
Research Category
Technology
Research Sub-Category
Tidal
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
Expected 2024
- Marine Energy
Technical Assessment for Co-locating Offshore Aquaculture with Wave Energy Resources: Framework and Use Cases Development
Lead Companies
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Lead Researcher (s)
- Lysel Garavelli
- Mikaela Freeman
This project consisted of two main research activities: a preliminary assessment of energy use in existing offshore aquaculture operations, and a spatial analysis to identify regions where environmental and socio-economic factors may support the powering of offshore aquaculture using marine renewable energy (MRE), specifically wave energy.
Technology Application
Marine Energy
Research Category
Environmental and Sustainability
Research Sub-Category
Environmental Impact
Status
complete
Completion Date
2021
- Marine Energy
Technical Feasibility and Environmental Effects of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)
Lead Companies
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Lead Researcher (s)
- Andrea Copping
Technology Application
Marine Energy
Research Category
Environmental and Sustainability
Research Sub-Category
Environmental Impact
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
- Marine Energy
Three Modeling Tools Accelerate The Developments of Marine Energy Technolopgies
Lead Companies
NREL
Lead Researcher (s)
- Michael Lawson
Enough power flows through U.S. rivers and oceans to meet up to 60% of the country’s electricity needs. But before today’s early-stage marine energy technologies can harness some of that power, they need to overcome a few challenges, such as a volatile ocean and high development costs. And to do that, technology developers need reliable tools to understand and overcome the challenges they face. That’s why researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have developed several open-source, validated, and customizable numerical tools for technology developers. With these tools, the marine energy community can assess their devices’ potential power output, predict how their technologies might handle extreme loads (like extreme waves), and learn how changing one component might affect their device’s performance. The lab’s models generate highly accurate, reliable, robust data that can help marine energy devices leap from the computer screen to the ocean and, eventually, the power grid.
Technology Application
Marine Energy
Research Category
Technology
Research Sub-Category
Status
complete
Completion Date
2022
Don’t see your waterpower research?
Have questions about WaRP?
Contact Marla Barnes at: marla@hydro.org