THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S WAVE ENERGY PRIZE: ADVANCING INNOVATION IN RENEWABLE ENERGY THROUGH A COMPETITION

How can the US Department of Energy (DOE) help reduce the cost of wave energy converters (WECs) in one fell swoop? How can the DOE generate enthusiasm and interest from new developers and investors? How can the DOE leverage the best ideas and promote investment in a clean energy future? Enter a tried and tested mechanism to help answer these questions: a prize.

The Water Power Program in the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is excited to be spearheading the Wave Energy Prize, a two-year design-build-test prize competition that will establish a pathway to sweeping cost reductions of WECs at a commercial scale. The goals of the prize are to 1) quickly yield a number of game-changing solutions which exceed aggressive but achievable performance metrics and provide a pathway to dramatic cost reductions; 2) mobilize new and existing talent (all of whom, if they complete the challenge, will emerge as “winners” since they will benefit from tank testing of their devices, an apples-to-apples comparison with other devices, and publicity); 3) increase the visibility of these wave energy devices and attract potential investors; and 4) successfully enable the top performers to become viable and competitive industry members.

In this presentation, we will talk about three aspects of the Wave Energy Prize vital to ensuring the success of the Prize: structural, technical, and administrative: 1) structural: how we designed a prize structure that would spur innovation quickly but not too aggressively as to disincentivize participation; 2) technical: how innovative technical criteria and metrics were developed that could move the wave energy community positively forward; and 3) administrative: new processes developed within the DOE to streamline contracting and legal approvals.

Successful participants in this three-stage challenge will design their game-changing WECs, and get $125,000 of seed funding to build them. These devices will then be put to the test in real-life wave scenarios at the Maneuvering and Seakeeping Basin at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division. All in all, it is anticipated that $4.5 million will be disbursed to prize participants by November 2016, with the grand prize being $1.5 million. Excited? Awesome.