The Wave Energy Prize is a public prize challenge sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Program that aims to encourage the development of more efficient wave energy conversion (WEC) devices.
Registration for the Wave Energy Prize opens online on April 1, 2015, with access to the Wave Energy Prize Rules, and closes on June 15.
The Water Power Program awarded USD 6.5 million to Prize Administration Team led by Ricardo Inc. for the execution of the competition.
The WEC Prize aims to attract innovative ideas from developers by offering a monetary prize to participants and by providing an opportunity for tank testing and evaluation of scaled WEC prototypes.
The Carderock Division in West Bethesda, Maryland will allow WEC Prize participants to put their WEC devices to the test to see how much energy they can extract from waves in real-life wave scenarios. It houses several basins, including the Maneuvering and Seakeeping basin which is 110 m long, 73 m wide, and 6 m deep, and has 216 individually-controlled paddles, the DoE’s press release reads.
U.S. entities are able to participate in the Wave Energy Prize. This includes U.S. persons and companies as well as foreign companies that are incorporated in and maintain a primary place of business in the United States.
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Image: DoE