The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) intends to issue, on behalf of the Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO), a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) titled “Advancing Wave Energy Technologies through Open Water Testing at PacWave.”
This FOA supports open water Research and Development (R&D) at the PacWave test site that is needed to advance wave energy converter (WEC) technologies towards commercial viability. This FOA will only fund projects that will advance WEC technologies at the PacWave South test site. Projects that propose testing at the PacWave North test site will not be considered for funding.
This FOA is focused on advancing WEC systems that vary in size from utility-scale, grid-connected devices, to smaller non-utility, non-grid-connected devices that provide power for Blue Economy applications. Specifically, this FOA aims to support R&D projects across three Topic Areas (TAs). TA1 focuses on testing of WEC system designs intended for remote and microgrid applications as well as open-source WEC system that aim to generate publicly available data and knowledge to benefit the entire WEC industry. TA2 focuses on advancing WEC designs for future deployment at PacWave South. TA3 is an open topic area that will support wave energy R&D projects at PacWave South that advance WECs and supporting technologies.
PacWave is an open ocean wave energy testing facility consisting of two sites, each located just a few miles from the deep-water port of Newport, Oregon on the ever-energetic Pacific Ocean. See the PacWave website and the “PacWave Information and Support” section for additional details - http://pacwaveenergy.org/
This notice of intent (NOI) is issued so that interested parties are aware of EERE’s intention to issue this FOA in the near term. All the information contained in this NOI is subject to change. EERE will not respond to questions concerning this NOI. Once the FOA has been released, EERE will provide an avenue for potential applicants to submit questions.