The Powering the Blue Economy™: Ocean Observing Prize challenged innovators to integrate marine renewable energy with ocean observation platforms, ultimately revolutionizing our ability to collect the data needed to understand, map, and monitor the ocean.
A joint endeavor of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) and the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®) program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Ocean Observing Prize included a series of competitions, with millions of dollars in awards, to encourage rapid innovation in the fields of marine energy and ocean observations.
Team Maiden Wave Energy LLC’s Rover tests their early-stage prototype at the Naval Surface Warfare Center’s facility in Carderock, Maryland. Credit:NREL
PRIZE COMPETITIONS
The Ocean Observing Prize consisted of two competitions designed to accelerate innovation in integrating marine energy with ocean observation.
The first competition, the DISCOVER Competition, which is now closed, solicited novel concepts that integrated ocean observing technologies with marine energy systems.
The second competition, the DEVELOP Competition, focused exclusively on the theme of hurricane monitoring. The challenge theme may vary in future iterations of the prize.
PRIZE GOALS
The purpose of this prize is to:
Enable collection of valuable new data. Proposed innovations should increase the coverage, resolution, and/or types of ocean and atmospheric variables that can be observed, collected, processed, and transmitted, leading to improved understanding, monitoring, and management of the ocean.
Generate sufficient power from co-located marine resources. Submissions must be able to generate enough power to meet the energy needs of the ocean observing community and prove the viability of marine energy to power ocean observing activities.
Accelerate commercialization of marine energy systems. Traditionally, marine energy devices developed for the electrical grid can take many years to design, build, and test. The prize aims to accelerate marine energy commercialization by working at smaller scales and zeroing in on the specific energy needs of ocean observing systems.
Forge a diverse community of innovators. This prize will welcome new innovators into the marine energy and ocean observing space. It will also help form new partnerships and collaborations among industry, academia, and government to create innovative ocean observing technologies powered by marine energy.
The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory are supporting DOE and NOAA on the development and administration of the prize.
Guidelines
Who can participate?
Please review the official Rules Document for the application process and instructions for competing.
If you want to subscribe to updates on the prize or have any questions, you may use the contact feature on the HeroX platform, or message us directly.
If you’re not interested in competing but want to help with the Prize in other ways, please feel free to contact us.
Thank you all for joining the webinar this week. We will be sharing a link to the recording soon for anyone who was unable to attend.
We did receive a few questions after the webinar had concluded, so we have provided our responses for the two questions that went unanswered below. Let us know if you need any further clarification, and good luck developing your concepts!
Are we required to use WEC-Sim for our simulation?
No. WEC-Sim is not a requirement, but just an option available to the competitors to complete the simulation.
Who would be the earliest adopter of our new technologies?
This competition was designed around the specific design needs of potential customers at NOAA who study hurricane monitoring. We cannot guarantee acquisition of any technologies, but a self-charging AUV would have applications for a variety of end-users. We encourage you to think about how the technology could be used ranging anywhere from the government to the private sector.
This is your opportunity to learn about some of the resources available to competitors, including WEC-Sim, MHKit, and the Blue Power Connectors. Register here, and get your questions answered.
The link to today’s webinar recording will be posted to HeroX within the next few weeks. And we hope you can join us on Tuesday, November 10 at 9:30 a.m. MT for part two of the DEVELOP Competition Applicant Webinar.
As always, you can post questions in the HeroX Forum, where someone will respond to you. This way, others who may have the same question will be able to see it. You can also message us directly at or .
In case you missed the NOAA Central Library Ocean Observing Prize: Opening the DEVELOP Competition webinar, the recording is now available.
EERE experts gave an overview of the Powering the Blue Economy initiative, reviewed the DEVELOP Competition rules, and explored use cases for marine energy-powered ocean observing devices and functional requirements.
And don't forget to tune in for the two-part applicant webinar series and hear directly from organizers:
