The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $25 million in funding to support increased research, development and demonstration of technologies that harness wave power to create electricity.
The funding supports eight projects that will make up the first round of open-water testing at the PacWave South test site off the Oregon coast.
These awards will strengthen wave energy technologies to accelerate their commercial viability and deploy them at scale to help decarbonize the grid and reach President Biden’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The selected projects are part of the Water Power Technologies Office’s (WPTO) “Advancing Wave Energy Technologies through Open Water Testing at PacWave” funding opportunity to support wave energy technologies through research, development, and eventual deployment.
The Eight Projects Focuses On:
Testing wave energy converter designs for use in geographically remote areas or on small, local energy grids.
- CalWave Power Technologies Inc. (Oakland, CA): $7,500,000
- Columbia Power Technologies Inc. (Charlottesville, VA): $4,182,275
- Developing wave energy converter designs that can be connected to or disconnected from the electricity grid.
- Dehlsen Associates, LLC (Santa Barbara, CA): $1,800,000
- Oscilla Power Inc. (Seattle, WA): $1,800,000
Performing research and development at PacWave related to environmental monitoring technologies, instrumentation systems that operators use to control wave energy converters and other technologies.
- Integral Consulting (Seattle, WA): $379,329
- Littoral Power Systems, Inc. (New Bedford, MA): $3,976,401
- Portland State University (Portland, OR): $4,507,330
- University of Washington (Seattle, WA): $1,299,689
