The Powering the Blue Economy™: Ocean Observing Prize seeks innovators to integrate marine renewable energy with ocean observation platforms, ultimately revolutionizing our capability to collect the data needed to understand, map, and monitor the ocean.
This joint prize between the Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) at the U.S. Department of Energy and the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®) program at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) seeks to address the 80% of the ocean that remains unexplored and to fill the data gaps that make it difficult for industry to make strategic siting, development, and management decisions and realize the full potential of the Blue Economy. The Ocean Observing Prize includes a series of competitions over several years to encourage rapid innovation in the fields of marine energy and ocean observations to develop solutions that meet the needs of ocean researchers, agencies, explorers, and other end-users. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory are supporting DOE and NOAA on the development and administration of the prize.
The Ocean Observing Prize is a series of competitions with cash awards to incentivize accelerated advancement of ideas from concept to demonstration. The first competition, the DISCOVER Competition, is now open and will solicit novel concepts that integrate ocean observing technologies with marine energy systems to address end-user needs across five broad themes: (1) Unmanned Vehicles; (2) Communications and Underwater Navigation; (3) Extreme Environments; (4) Buoys, Floats, and Tags; and (5) Blue Sea Ideas (i.e. other). Following the DISCOVER Competition will be the DEVELOP Competition which will focus on a single theme and challenge contestants to develop their ideas into a functioning prototype. Together, the DISCOVER and DEVELOP Competitions will award up to $3 million in cash prizes as well as other in-kind awards.
The Ocean Observing Prize is repeatable, and it is expected that future iterations of the DISCOVER and DEVELOP Competitions may be run again in the future to cover other themes. Through this competition, innovators will be able to tap into DOE and NOAA’s network of National Laboratories, energy incubators, subject matter experts, and other resources across the nation, building strong partnerships between marine energy and ocean observation experts.
