The American-Made Power at Sea Prize seeks new, innovative, and feasible marine energy concepts that can fulfill Powering the Blue Economy initiatives—including supporting offshore industries, science, and security activities, and meeting the energy and water needs of coastal and rural island communities. The two-phase, $1.7 million prize is open to new and existing participants in marine energy.
Through this prize, WPTO seeks to:
• Engage and cultivate a community of new and existing participants in marine energy to introduce new, creative minds to Powering the Blue Economy and the marine energy field, fostering the development of new concepts and lessons learned.
• Identify new, innovative, and feasible marine energy concepts that have a high likelihood of providing power at sea in the near term to accelerate the commercialization of the nascent marine energy industry.
• Introduce competitors to WPTO and government funding mechanisms and prepare them to compete technically and financially for future funding opportunities both within and beyond DOE.
The first phase, CONCEPT, will center on developing teams and sound concepts, awarding up to 20 winners from a cash prize pool of up to $200,000. Concepts in early stages of development are welcome—from a system, subsystem, or component that has not yet been developed to those that have had some previous work completed up to the prototype stage. The CONCEPT phase is now open for submissions and will close on July 26, 2024. The challenge’s first webinar will be held November 29 to inform interested competitors about prize details.
The second phase, DEVELOP, aims to better position competitors for continued technology development following the prize. Up to 20 DEVELOP phase winners will be selected and share a cash prize pool of up to $1.5 million.