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In 2019, WPTO established the Seedlings Program to provide smaller funding awards for national lab researchers to explore niche projects and creative ideas in hydropower and marine renewable energy research. In just two years, the pilot funded over 70 R&D projects across six national laboratories with sums up to $100,000 each. These projects have the potential to inform future programmatic competitive solicitations, initiatives, and follow-on projects depending on outcomes. Through project presentations and panel discussions, presenters will share solutions found, failures faced, and lessons learned in their innovative process.

Agenda

1:00-1:05 p.m. ET | Introduction (agenda & logistics)

1:05 - 1:15 p.m. ET | Introduction to WPTO Seedlings Program

1:15 – 2:00 p.m. ET | Breakout Session 1: Attendees split into 2 breakout rooms. Each seedling presentation has 7 minutes. Presentations are listed in order of appearance.

Track 1: Energy Solutions From the Ocean

  1. Regenerative Thermomagnetic Generator—A Feasibility Study for Powering the Blue Economy (PBE) Ravi Anant Kishore
  2. A Comparative Analysis of Lithium- Ion Battery Chemistries for Cold- Climate Maritime Applications Rob Cavagnaro
  3. Lithium Seawater Electrochemical Extraction Technology Dongping Lu
  4. Novel Demonstration of Syngas Generation Solely from the Sea Matt Asmussen
  5. Hydrogen generation from seawater for MHK power storage Kelsey Stoerzinger
  6. Technical Feasibility and Environmental Effects of OTEC Andrea Copping

Track 2: Resource Assessment and Environmental Monitoring

  1. Impacts of sea-ice on nearshore wave resource assessment and MHK project siting Ruth Branch
  2. Preliminary Assessment of Wave Energy to Undersea Storage (WEtUS) Kurban Sitterley, Lily Nguyen
  3. Assessing the use of environmental DNA to monitor changes in habitats caused by offshore energy developments Michelle Fu, Lenaig Hemery
  4. Wave Forecasting Improvements to Support a Wave-to-Wire Wave Energy Management Tool Jesse Roberts
  5. Assessment of spatio-temporal uncertainty of fixed- and moving- vessel current profiler measurements for improving the IEC tidal energy resource assessment technical specification Budi Gunawan
  6. The tidal powered Coastal Real-time Acoustic Buoy (tpCRAB) Joe Haxel

2:00 - 2:10 p.m. ET | Break 

2:10 - 2:50 p.m. ET | Panel: How to Seed Innovation and the Value of Failure

Moderator: Jenn Garson, Acting Director, Water Power Technologies Office
Jasmine Bridges, Commercialization Executive, Office of Technology Transitions
Michael LaPointe, Program Exec, Center Innovation Fund, NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate

2:50 - 3:10 p.m. ET | Break/Lunch

3:10 - 3:55 p.m. ET | Session 2: Attendees split into 2 breakout rooms. Each seedling presentation has 7 minutes. Presentations are listed in order of appearance.

Track 1: Materials Science

  1. Resiliency of Polycrystalline Diamond Bearings Exposed to Marine Environments Nolann Williams
  2. Novel Eco-Friendly High-Lubricity Ionic Liquids for Marine Turbomachinery Lubrication Jun Qu
  3. Predictive Online Monitoring of Polymer Tendons (PrOMPT) Leo Fifield
  4. Metal Advanced Manufacturing to Improve Techno-economic Performance of Marine Renewable Energy Technologies Michael Heiden
  5. Biologically Integrated Oscillating Wave Energy Converter (BIOWEC) Karolina Rak, Nathan Tom, Yi-Hsiang Yu, Ben Maurer
  6. Wave Energy Converter Rotary PTO Belt Fatigue Investigation Budi Gunawan

Track 2: Manufacturing and Controls

  1. Mid-Fidelity Modeling and Design Tools for Cross-Flow Turbines: Developing a Double- Multiple Streamtube Model Hannah Ross
  2. Marine Energy Composites & Manufacturing Workshop Bernie Hernandez-Sanchez
  3. Self-Tuning, Load-Mitigating Feedback Control of a 3-DOF Point Absorber Dominic Forbush
  4. Autonomous Monitoring, Inspection & Maintenance in MHK Fleets: Scalable Inference and Optimization for Effective Asset Health Management Feng Qiu
  5. Design Load Case Generator: Web application tool to streamline IEC 62600-2 design load requirements and certification Vincent Neary
  6. Tidal and Ocean Current Power Profile Generator Saptarshi Bhattacharya
  7. Generative Design Senu Sirnivas, Scott Jenne

3:55 - 4:05 p.m. ET | Break

4:05 - 4:57 p.m. ET | Session 3: Attendees split into 2 breakout rooms. Each seedling presentation has 7 minutes. Presentations are listed in order of appearance.

Track 1: Emerging Marine Energy Concepts

  1. Engaging the Future Marine Energy Workforce through their Teachers Alison Colotelo
  2. Technical Assessment for Co- locating Offshore Aquaculture with Wave Energy Resources Lysel Garavelli, Mikaela Freeman
  3. Coastal Community Resilience and Sustainability Enhancement with Marine Energy Resources Jianzhe Liu
  4. R&D Program Strategy for Far Offshore Wind (FARWIND) Energy Technologies Vincent Neary
  5. Internal Waves: A potentially untapped marine energy resource Jesse Roberts
  6. Prototype & Co-Design of nascent flexWEC concepts Blake Boren
  7. Self-Charging Wave Actuated AUV Chris Matthews, Scott Jenne

Track 2: Hydropower

  1. Data-Driven Approach for Hydropower Plant Controller Prototyping using Remote Hardware-in- the-Loop Mayank Panwar
  2. Improving the Timing and Volume of Hydrosystem Inflow through Targeted Forest Management Mark Wigmosta
  3. Assessment of United States Critical Infrastructure sites that are candidates for Hydropower Shiloh Elliott
  4. Feasibility of Hydrokinetic Energy Applications within Hydropower Tailrace Channels Mirko Musa
  5. Sensing Hydro Control System Communication for Security and Failures Eric Choi
  6. An Integrated Framework for Condition Monitoring Based Asset Management in Hydropower Fleets: Adaptive and Scalable Prognostics, Operations, and Maintenance Feng Qiu
  7. Environmental DNA applications for hydropower aquatic community monitoring and environmental impact studies Kristine Moody, Brenda Pracheil

4:57 - 5:00 p.m. ET | Closing