Just over a week after the United Kingdom became home to Wave Hub, the world's largest wave power testing site, the Department of Energy issued their biggest batch of funding yet for harnessing energy from various U.S. waterways.
The $37 million in government grants cover 27 projects intending to generate power from rivers, tides, waves, vortexes, currents and thermal gradients. Spanning many different technologies and locations, some of the projects are in their infancy while others might be powering American homes in the next few years.
Wave Hub may begin operations as soon as next year. According to the UK's Science Minister David Willetts will:
Strengthen the UK’s position at the forefront of the wave energy sector. The UK is already leading the way, with 25 per cent of the world’s wave and tidal technologies being developed here. This is a huge opportunity for UK business – the sector could be worth £2 billion by 2050 and it has the potential to create up to 16,000 jobs by 2040.
That would be swell. And American company Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) is one of the wave device developers on board for the South West RDA project off the southwestern coast of England. OPT is also leading the way for wave power on this side of the pond, with the U.S.'s first wave farm off the Oregon coast. The New Jersey-based company received a total of $4,809,000 for two projects in the governments latest round of funding.
All 27 DOE grantees are listed below:
ORPC, improve MHK designs for handling sediment in tidal and river scenarios. $240,000
Whitestone Power and Communications, test River In-Stream Conversion device. $142,000
Dehlsen Associates, develop Aquantis C-Plane to extract kinetic energy from ocean currents. $2,400,000
Shift Power Solutions, Inc., a system to capture wave energy and serve as breakwater. $240,000
The Regents of the Univ. of California, develop Bi-directional Rotor Tidal Turbine. $158,000
Atargis Energy, Inc. create and test laboratory-scale Cycloidal Wave Energy Converter. $400,000
Makai Ocean Engineering, numerical model to optimize eco-friendly designs for ocean thermal energy conversion facilities. $240,000
Ocean Renewable Power Co., five grid-connected TidGen Project devices in Cobscook Bay. $10,000,000
Wavebob LLC, an advanced power take-off device for point absorber wave generator. $2,400,000
Resolute Marine Energy, Inc., develop wave energy converter. $160,000
Semprus Biosciences, research on underwater coatings to prevent biofouling. $160,000
Ocean Power Technologies, a 500 kilowatt PB500 PowerBuoy wave energy device. $2,400,000
Princeton Power Systems, develop power conditioning system to improve MHK device efficiency. $600,000
Sunlight Photonics, Inc. demonstrate Hydraulic Energy Transfertidal turbine system. $400,000
THOR, demonstrate method to maximize ocean current turbine device. $400,000
Ocean Power Technologies, deploy full-scale, 150-kw PowerBuoy system off Oregon coast. $2,409,000
Northwest Energy Innovations, a multimode floating point absorber wave energy device. $1,818,500
M3 Wave Energy Systems, explore commercial viability of Delos-Reyes Morrow Pressure Device. $240,000
Bayer Material Science LLC, analysis of non-turbine approach to capture river currents. $240,000
U.S. Synthetic Corporation develop water-lubricated polycrystalline diamond thrust bearings. $147,000
Lockheed Martin MS2, develop numerical model for floating ocean thermal conversion platforms. $600,000
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