Competitors in the 2022 Marine Energy Collegiate Competition demonstrated "new possibilities" for using marine energy to meet the nation's climate goals, the U.S. Department of Energy said in a June 1 news release.
The department announced the winners of the competition, as well as "the new wave of" student competitors in the inaugural Hydropower Collegiate Competition and 2023 Marine Energy Collegiate Competition.
"We congratulate the winners, alongside all the 2022 Marine Energy Collegiate competitors for demonstrating new possibilities for how we can use marine energy to meet our climate goals," Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Kelly Speakes-Backman, said in the release. "I'm also excited to see what's in store for the 2023 Marine Energy and Hydropower Collegiate Competition teams as they gain real-world experience and make connections through these competitions as they begin their careers. We hope to see many of these talented students join the hydropower or marine energy industries in the years ahead."
The Marine Energy Collegiate Competition encourages multidisciplinary teams of undergraduate and graduate students to propose new ideas for marine energy that will "capture the power of the ocean," the release stated.
"Marine energy has the potential to provide clean energy to remote and island communities and for blue economy applications such as ocean observation technology or desalination systems," according to the release.
Webb Institute in Glen Cove, New York, took first place in the third annual Marine Energy Collegiate Competition, the release stated. Webb Institute congratulated seniors, Juliette Lehman, Sasha Kritsuk, Luke Kiely, and Minh Tran, as well as juniors Adriana Torres-Rodriguez and Si Cong Chen, and sophomore Rebecca Ashmore "for their outstanding work" in the competition, in a Facebook post June 2.
The Oregon State University team placed second in the competition while the University of New Hampshire team placed third, the release stated.
The 17 collegiate competitors in the Marine Energy Collegiate Competition also included Virginia Tech's mechanical engineering department, whose offshore wind team won in the "Build and Test" category, according to the release.
"This team implemented technical and business insights gleaned from members of the offshore wind energy industry and tested a dual-functional offshore wind platform that is capable of stabilizing the wind turbine and simultaneously harvesting the wind-wave induced vibration energy," Virginia Tech stated in a June 3 press release.
