The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO), in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-led U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS), NOAA National Sea Grant (NSG), NOAA Ocean Acidification Program (OAP), and NOAA Fisheries Office of Aquaculture announced a $1.7 million Powering the Blue Economy™: Power at Sea Prize.
Donor Name: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Awards and Prizes
Deadline: 07/26/2024
Size of the Grant: $100,000 to $500,000
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
The Power at Sea Prize, which expands on the Ocean Observing Prize, is structured to support competitors through the early stages of developing a new system, subsystem, or component from original conception to teaming to a testable stage of initial development.
The prize aims to be a proving ground for ideas that have not yet had the opportunity to flourish and is structured so competitors end the prize with concepts, materials, and media collateral to better position them for future technology development.
Through this prize, WPTO seeks to:
- Engage and cultivate a community of new and existing participants in marine energy to introduce new, creative minds to Powering the Blue Economy and the marine energy field, fostering the development of new concepts and lessons learned.
- Identify new, innovative, and feasible marine energy concepts that have a high likelihood of providing power at sea in the near term to accelerate the commercialization of the nascent marine energy industry.
- Introduce competitors to WPTO and government funding mechanisms and prepare them to compete technically and financially for future funding opportunities both within and beyond DOE.
Challenge Areas
Competitors will be required to choose one challenge area to address from the following list of specific blue economy integration challenges that can be addressed in the marine energy concepts submitted to this prize:
- Access: How does your marine energy solution help to reduce the high cost or limited opportunities for service, maintenance, and/or intervention for at-sea blue economy applications?
- Deployment duration: How does your marine energy solution improve the deployment duration of at-sea blue economy applications?
- Energy storage: How does your marine energy solution improve the capabilities and duty cycles currently limited by battery capacity, especially considering that batteries may account for most of sensor volume and weight?
- Environmental/ecological impact: How does your marine energy solution minimize the negative effects of interactions with local flora and fauna at the deployment site?
- Harsh operational conditions: How does your marine energy solution minimize or otherwise address operations in challenging conditions like violent storms, strong currents, strong pressure (i.e., for subsea applications), corrosive media, and unwanted growth of marine organisms?
- Hybridization with other renewable energy resources: How does your hybrid solution utilize marine energy to address power gaps caused by intermittency of other non-marine renewable energy resources like solar and wind due to seasonality and changing weather patterns?
- Suitability of power: Sensors, instrumentation, and automation require specific power at specific times. How does your marine energy solution match power generation to power needs to maximize efficiency?
Prize Structure
The Power at Sea Prize is structured to support competitors through the early stages of developing a new system, subsystem, or component from original conception, to teaming, to a testable stage of initial development. The prize aims to provide a proving ground for ideas that have not yet had the opportunity to flourish and is structured so competitors end the prize with concepts, materials, and media collateral to better position them for future technology development.
- Concept Phase
- The Power at Sea CONCEPT Phase is focused on forming a cohort of participants, ensuring innovators are engaged with the competitor support mechanisms, and preparing teams for the challenges in the DEVELOP Phase. Concepts in early stages of development are welcome—from a system, subsystem, or component that has not yet been developed to those that have had some previous work completed up to the prototype stage.
- Up to 20 CONCEPT Phase winners will be awarded from a cash prize pool of up to $200,000.
- Develop Phase
- The Power at Sea DEVELOP Phase will be focused on continued concept development. Competitor support will be tailored to meet competitor needs, depending on what stage of development their concept is in. Support will include prototyping support, access to makerspaces, and/or commercialization training. The DEVELOP Phase aims to better position competitors for continued technology development following the prize.
- Specific submission requirements for the DEVELOP Phase will be defined in a future rules document. Up to 20 DEVELOP Phase winners will be awarded from a cash prize pool of up to $1,500,000.
Eligibility Criteria
The competition is open to individuals; private entities (for-profits and nonprofits); nonfederal government entities such as states, counties, tribes, and municipalities; and academic institutions.
For more information, visit DOE.
