US Flexes Its Marine Energy Muscles For 24/7 Baseload Power

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The new “American Energy Dominance” policy pursues coal, oil, gas, and other 24/7 baseload power generation resources while cutting the US wind and solar industries adrift, particularly in the case of offshore wind. However, the new policy also makes ample room for other renewable energy assets to burst into full flower. The new policy embraces hydropower, geothermal energy, and biomass, and now marine energy has emerged as part of the plan as well.

Marine Energy Is Part Of The Plan

To be clear, the initial White House “Unleashing American Energy Dominance” announcement from January does not specifically list either geothermal energy or marine energy among the protected industries. However, Energy Secretary Chris Wright has made it clear that geothermal energy fits neatly into the American Energy Dominance plan.

“Geothermal has tremendous potential as an energy source if we use our advanced technologies and know-how to bring this natural resource to the market,” Wright said during a geothermal industry conference in February. “This is just an awesome resource that’s under our feet.”

“Let’s work together to better energize our country, improve quality of life, drive AI innovation, support manufacturing reshoring, and stop rising electricity prices,” he added.

The same can be said of marine energy. Like geothermal energy, marine energy — meaning the kinetic energy of currents, tides, and waves — is a vast baseload power generation resource at the nation’s fingertips, meaning that it can deliver electricity regardless of variations in weather patterns, seasons, or time of day.

Like the advanced geothermal industry, the marine energy industry is also a newly emerging industry that encompasses a wildly diverse roster of different technologies, and it has yet to establish a footing in mainstream energy markets.

As for whether or not the US will actively support its homegrown marine energy industry, actions speak louder than words. One sign of life popped up in July, for example, when the US Department of Energy announced that marine energy has been added to the agency’s longstanding hydropower collaboration with Norway.

18 Marine Energy Projects For The USA

Another factor in support of marine energy (also called ocean energy) is its potential for use by the US Navy. By the early 2000’s, the Navy already had a grid-connected wave energy test site up and running at a bayside location in Hawaii. More recently, the Energy Department supported the launch of a much larger, open-ocean test facility off the Oregon Coast.

In addition, the Energy Department supports a multistate network of both water- and land-based marine energy R&D resources, available to researchers and industry stakeholders through the TEAMER (Testing Expertise and Access to Marine Energy Research) program under the direction of the Pacific Ocean Energy Trust.

TEAMER has previously issued 15 rounds of awards to marine energy innovators, and it announced a 16th round earlier this week. “TEAMER accelerates the viability of marine energy by providing access to the nation’s best facilities and expertise to solve critical challenges, build knowledge, foster innovation, and drive commercialization,” TEAMER explained earlier this week, when it announced awards for 18 new projects.

“These Technical Support Recipients (TSRs) will receive support for testing expertise and access to numerical modeling, laboratory or bench testing, tank/flume testing, and expertise within the growing TEAMER Facility Network,” the agency added.

The Many Faces Of Marine Energy

The selected cohort still has to submit planning documents to TEAMER before they can access the assistance they need. Assuming all goes according to plan, the program will help launch multiple renewable energy stakeholders into business, including innovators in the tidal energy and hydrokinetic fields as well as wave energy.

In the wave energy category, TEAMERS included AOE Accumulated Ocean Energy Inc., Azura Wave Power, Ocean Inertia, Poseidon’s Kite, Wave Swell Energy, and Wavewatts along with HydrokinetX, which has developed a device that harvests energy from both waves and currents.

Under the tidal energy banner, Aquantis, Inc. has partnered with Kelson Marine Co. and the American Bureau of Shipping on testing and risk assessment for its new tidal turbine system. The company will also partner with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to measure tidal energy potential in Alaska.

Ocean currents feature in the cohort as well. The firm Equinox is relying on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to help support the deployment of its 2-megawatt deep-water current turbine, in partnership with 3U Technologies.

The hydrokinetic field is represented by Blade Runner, which seeks to optimize the performance of its system in the winter when river surfaces are iced over, and Emrgy, which plans to partner with Verdantas Flow Labs to optimize its vertical axis technology.

More Renewable Energy For The USA

The cohort also includes R&D projects with potential benefits for multiple stakeholders, such as a wave resource modeling project hosted by Cal Poly Pier in San Luis Obispo Bay in California. In New York, Cornell University aims to develop an optimization framework for wave energy converters, while the firm Deep Anchor Solutions, Inc. will finetune its next-generation marine energy anchoring system.

TEAMER makes its resources available to researchers around the world, and that is reflected in the new cohort. The Ecuadorian institution ESPOL Polytechnic University, for example, will be working on a wave energy converter tailored for the long swells characteristic of tropical regions. The University of Porto in Portugal and the University of Victoria in Canada have also won slots.

The University of Victoria project is particularly interesting because it supports the potential for piggybacking wave energy converters onto offshore wind platforms, thereby sharing costs. Specifically, the school will expand upon the “Performance Optimization of a Hybrid Offshore Wind-Wave Energy Platform” funded by the EU.

The US doesn’t have much of an offshore wind industry to speak of any more, but coastal infrastructure can still provide cost-sharing opportunities for marine energy. Outside of the TEAMER program, one innovator to watch is the Israeli startup Eco Wave Power.

Two years ago the firm partnered with the Port of Los Angeles to introduce its wave energy harvesters to the US, and a pilot-scale project was finally ready for launch on August 27. In an interesting turn of events, Eco Wave Power founder and CEO Inna Braverman scored an opportunity to raise public awareness about the benefits of marine energy, arranging for the popular ABC TV newscast Good Morning America to capture the moment when her company’s bright blue floaters were lowered into the water for the first time.

“This pilot station is a vital step in demonstrating how wave energy can be harnessed using existing marine infrastructure, while laying the groundwork for full-scale commercialization in the United States,” Braverman explained in a press statement.

Of note, Eco Wave Power has already begun building up its US supply chain, with the floaters fabricated by the Los Angeles firm All-Ways Metal, and installation performed by the family firm C&S Welding Inc., headquartered in Wilmington, California.

Image (cropped): Innovators in the US marine energy field continue to benefit from Energy Department support through the TEAMER network of research and testing resources (courtesy of NREL).