The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) announced Phase I winners of the Innovating Distributed Embedded Energy Prize (InDEEP) for concepts to harness and convert the power of ocean waves into usable energy.
Nineteen teams shared $285,000 in cash prizes for their novel distributed embedded energy converter technology (DEEC-Tec) concepts. DEEC-Tec concepts combine many small energy converters, often less than a few centimeters in size, into a single, larger ocean wave energy converter. This larger system could convert energy from a wide range of ocean locations and wave types.
During Phase I, competitors developed an initial DEEC-Tec concept, submitted a brief technical narrative representing their idea and innovation process, and completed a simplified technology performance level assessment to reflect their concept’s potential economic performance.
The following teams were each awarded $15,000 for their concepts:
- Active Materials and Smart Living, Las Vegas, Nev.
- Blackfish Engineering, Braintree, Mass.
- Blue Lotus Energy, Adair, Ok.
- Chemventive, Chadds Ford, Pa.
- Condensed Wave Matter, Madison, Wis.
- Elysium Robotics, Austin, Texas
- FluxMagic, Portland, Ore.
- Michigan Technological University and Arizona State University, Houghton, Mich.
- PECWEC, Storrs/Mansfield, Ct.
- PiezOrigami Team, Blacksburg, Va.
- Pittsburgh Coastal Energy, Pittsburgh, Pa.
- PSU_EnergyHarvesting from State College, Pennsylvania
- RQR Wave Team, Longmont, Colo.
- Soft Energy, Ithaca, N.Y.
- Streaming Energy, La Jolla, Calif.
- Team FUSION, Newport, Mich.
- Water Bros Development, Charlotte, N.C.
- WaveHarvest, Dallas, Texas
- Wave Grid, Galveston, Texas
Phase II of InDEEP is open and welcomes new and returning competitors. In Phase II, competitors will build and test a single energy converter designed to be part of a larger DEEC-Tec. Phase II submissions close on May 7, 2024.
InDEEP is funded by WPTO and administered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in partnership with Sandia National Laboratories.
