Topic Area 1 (Distributed Scale Open Water Testing and System Validation): This Topic Area opportunity leverages wave energy technologies that provide power to distributed blue economy applications.
Key TA1 objectives:
• Accelerate the development of wave energy technologies via structured design and testing methods that focus on rapid iteration and knowledge generation, enabled by the smaller size and lower cost of distributed blue economy applications.
• Mature distributed wave energy harvesting technologies in the ocean, leading to significant increases in performance and reliability.
• Produce data and information at all stages of design and testing that maximize value to the sector, including but not limited to design tool development and validation, lessons learned, standards development, and deployment experience.
• If applicable, leverage previous testing infrastructure investments at national labs and NMECs to demonstrate that robust lab testing prior to ocean deployment increases ocean testing success while reducing project costs and schedule.
• Demonstrate the ability of wave energy to provide reliable power for an identified distributed blue economy application(s) and establish sector credibility that marine energy is a cornerstone for growth
Topic Area 2 (Community Scale Open Water Testing and System Validation): This Topic Area aims to develop functional wave energy technologies for coastal and island stakeholders (may or may not be grid-connected).
Key TA2 objectives:
• Establish community-scale technology solutions for energy resilient coastal communities with simple, robust, modular devices.
• Deploy smaller-scale, nearshore WEC energy solutions to unlock value in the blue economy of coastal communities and industries.
• Scale-up successful technologies from Waves 2 Water Prize and marine energy systems innovation at sea technologies to community-scale desalination opportunities.
• Accelerate faster design and testing cycles towards reliability and survivability.
• Solve energy system integration challenges for microgrids and/or regional grids in particular. Early supply chain development.
Topic Area 3 (Utility Scale Open Water Testing and System Validation): This Topic Area allows for maturing grid connected technologies that demonstrate reliable power generation direct to a utility.
Key TA3 objectives:
• Baselining WEC reliability, survivability data through extended testing durations.
• Baselining high fidelity WEC CAPEX and OPEX cost data utilizing the LCOE Cost Breakdown Structure to baseline.
• Increasing WPTO confidence in cost estimates prior to authorizing fabrication via third party verification of estimates.
• Demonstrating the ability of PacWave to test multiple utility scale. prototypes in parallel in accordance with grid integration protocols. Implementation of foundational R&D to improve overall WEC system performance.
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