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.
The Ocean Observing Prize DEVELOP Competition and DESIGN Contest will be launching soon! We encourage you to stay up to date by checking the Ocean Observing Prize HeroX page. You can also follow our affiliated news sources:
Tune in to an upcoming webinar hosted by an American-Made Network Power Connector on Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 11am ET. More details and registration info is below.
CMU SCOTT INSTITUTE HOSTING IP WEBINAR
Power Connector the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University is hosting an informational webinar on intellectual property (IP) and patent processes for innovators and startups. The webinar, From Idea to Invention to Intellectual Property: What Startups and Innovators Need to Know, is on Thursday, June 11, 2020, at 11 a.m. ET.
Tune in to hear about IP best practices from legal experts at the national law firm and Network member Babst Calland, as well as Scott Institute entrepreneur Jay Whitacre. This webinar is free and will also have a Q&A session.
PNNL coastal researchers and engineers will host a Reddit Ask Me Anything panel on May 20 on the blue economy, covering some of the top research being done in marine renewable energy, autonomous ocean vehicles, and commercial vessels and ports, to name a few.
This is a great opportunity to hear from some of the scientists and engineers at the Marine Sciences Laboratory (MSL) in Sequim, Washington, who have expertise in exciting high-growth marine technologies, including wave and tidal energy, offshore wind, environmental monitoring instruments, and sustainable hydrogen and biofuel production from the ocean.
Thank you for continuing to engage with one another on this site, and we certainly encourage everyone to work together and with us to advance solutions to better understand our ocean!
However, as a reminder, per Appendix 1— Additional Terms and Conditions Section 1 of the Official Rules Document, you and your submissions “will be disqualified if they contain any matter that, in the sole discretion of DOE or the Prize Administrator, is indecent, obscene, defamatory, libelous, lacking in professionalism, or demonstrates a lack of respect for people or life on this planet.” This extends to any material posted in the Forum or other comments posted to this HeroX platform. We do monitor the Forum, and all other comments. We will also remove any material that falls underneath these categorization as well.
We hope you are all keeping safe during this time, and please stay engaged with the prize over the next few months while we work to prepare for the next stage of the prize.