ORONO, Maine — Wave energy developers vying for a $1.5 million federal prize are testing their designs at the University of Maine’s new wind-wave simulation laboratory.
The Harold Alfond W2 Ocean Engineering Lab at UMaine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center is one of five facilities in the United States that the U.S Department of Energy tapped to serve as a testing site for 17 designs for new technologies to convert energy from waves into energy for homes.
“Helping identify the best ideas in the U.S. to convert wave energy into electricity is yet another way that UMaine participates in developing clean, low-cost, domestic renewable energy,” Habib Dagher, director of the composites center, said earlier this month.
Once testing is complete, the U.S. Department of Energy will grant awards to help the top developers build full-scale versions of their technologies. The Department of Energy’s Wave Energy Prize competition comes with a top award of $1.5 million, second is $500,000, and the third-place company will receive $250,000.
One Maine company is in the running and is testing its technology at UMaine. John Rohrer, president and CEO of York-based RTI Wage Energy, was on site Dec. 18 testing his design — RTI F2 QD — which he’s been working on for the past seven years and holds six patents.
Rohrer said testing his semi-submerged design on a small scale is key to keeping costs down in the long run. He believes some companies try to “scale up” their ideas too early in the process. At full-scale, his design would be about 28 meters wide and weigh in at 200 tons. It would be deployed in “farms,” like turbines or solar panels, in about 60 meters of water. He expects each unit to produce a peak of 1.5 megawatts of electricity, enough for 1,000 homes.
UMaine is the testing site for three of the 17 wave energy designs being considered by the Department of Energy. The other two come from Oscilla Power of Seattle and Float Inc. of San Diego.
The 1:50-scale models of their designs will be put through a series of tests to determine how they perform facing a litany of wave conditions.
The $13.8 million wind-wave facility was unveiled during a dedication ceremony last month. The Department of Energy selected the center as one of its testing sites before the lab was even complete, according to Dagher, the center’s director.
The lab features a 16-foot-deep wave pool with a rotating wind machine. It’s meant to test 1:50 scale models against waves up to 2½ feet, or 125 feet when scaled up, and the scale equivalent of hurricane-force winds.
The university is being reimbursed by the Department of Energy program for its participation in the testing. The value of that contract was not immediately available.
“We’re seeing a lot of interest in the facility from a variety of industries,” Dagher said.
Some of those industries could include shipbuilding, aquaculture, oil, transportation and alternative energy, he said.
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