Award Number: DE-EE0007174CX(s) Applied: A9, B3.6, B5.25Water Power Technologies OfficeLocation(s): VAOffice(s): Golden
Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance
June 15, 2017
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Efficient and Reliable Power Takeoff for Ocean Wave Energy Harvesting
Award Number: DE-EE0007174
CX(s) Applied: A9, B3.6, B5.25
Water Power Technologies Office
Location(s): VA
Office(s): Golden Field Office
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is proposing to provide federal funding to Virginia Tech to improve upon current ocean wave energy harvesting by designing, prototyping, and validating an innovative PTO (Power Take-Off) with a novel Mechanical Motion Rectifier (MMR) mechanism and unique power electronics to improve energy conversion efficiency and power output and reduce failure rate.
DOE previously completed a NEPA review for Tasks 1-8 of the proposed project (GFO-0007174-001 CXA9 and B3.6 11/17/2015). Since that time Virginia Tech has made some modifications to the Statement of Project Objectives (SOPO), added some additional proposed tasks, and re-numbered previously approved tasks.
In the original SOPO Virginia Tech proposed nine tasks for this project, with Tasks 1-8 previously reviewed. In their new SOPO Virginia Tech proposes 11 tasks.
Tasks 1-4 remain the same. These tasks were previously reviewed. The new Task 5 (Tank Testing and In Water Test of Scaled Wave Energy Converter (WEC)) is a new task which must be evaluated in this NEPA review. Though slightly renamed, the new Tasks 6, 7, and 8 are the same as the old Tasks 5, 6, and 7. These tasks were previously reviewed. The new Task 9 (Development of Control Algorithms for Device Tuning and Peak Power Extraction) is a new task which must be evaluated in this NEPA review. Though slightly renamed, the new Task 10 is the same as the old Task 8. That task was previously reviewed. The new Task 11 (Third-party Verification and Planning for In-ocean Testing) is a new task which must be evaluated in this NEPA review. The new Task 5 would include three subtasks. Subtask 5.1 would involve the testing of a 1:20 scale WEC in a wave tank. Subtask 5.2 would include testing of the 1:20 scale WEC in Claytor Lake, at Claytor Lake State Park in Dublin, Virginia. Subtask 5.3 would involve testing the 1:20 scale WEC in the Atlantic Ocean near Virginia Beach, Virginia.