Jennifer M. Granholm Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy | Official Website
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy has announced AquaHarmonics as the winner of the Wave Energy Prize, awarding them a $1.5 million grand prize. CalWave Power Technologies and Waveswing America secured second and third places, receiving $500,000 and $250,000 in cash prizes, respectively.
With over 50 percent of the U.S. population residing within 50 miles of coastlines, wave energy presents a significant opportunity to provide clean, renewable electricity to various communities across the country.
The Wave Energy Prize is an 18-month design-build-test competition aimed at fostering the development of innovative wave energy converters to reduce the cost of wave energy. This technology has the potential to offer clean, cost-competitive, and reliable energy for homes, businesses, and government facilities in suitable geographic areas within the United States.
“The Wave Energy Prize marks a significant advance for marine energy,” said Lynn Orr, DOE’s Under Secretary for Science and Energy. “This competition set a difficult threshold of doubling the energy captured from ocean waves, and four teams surpassed that goal. AquaHarmonics’ technology leap incentivized by the Energy Department demonstrates how rapid innovation can be achieved in a public prize challenge.”
Ninety-two teams registered for the prize starting in April 2015. Throughout the competition, judges identified nine finalists and two alternates in March. These teams received up to $125,000 in seed funding to develop scaled prototypes of their wave energy converter devices. Supported by the U.S. Navy, finalist teams tested their prototypes at the Naval Surface Warfare Center's Maneuvering and Seakeeping Basin in Carderock, Maryland.
Wave energy is generated by converting wave motion into electricity and holds promise as a substantial renewable resource for the United States. The sector remains in its early stages with diverse technologies making it challenging to determine viable solutions both technically and economically. The Wave Energy Prize Competition addressed this issue by evaluating various device types against high-energy capture thresholds.
“It’s been a project we’ve been working on since even before the Wave Energy Prize was announced,” said Max Ginsburg from AquaHarmonics. “As we progressed towards the finals, it just got more and more exciting.”
For more information on funding opportunities related to water power technologies or details about the competition results, visit the Water Power Technologies Office website or go to the Wave Energy Prize website.
