$16. 9 million funding available for offshore wind and marine energy research and development.
Wind Energy Technologies Office
October 21, 2024
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Office: Wind Energy Technologies Office
FOA number: DE-FOA-0003121
FOA Amount: $16.9 million
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) issued this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) on behalf of the Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) and Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO), and the Department of Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). Management of the awards will also be in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service.
The funding opportunity was announced on September 29, 2023. DOE announced the selection of 14 projects on October 21, 2024.
Selected projects will support accelerated and responsible development of offshore renewable energy by funding research to reduce risk and improve environmental compatibility of deployments in all regions of U.S. waters including the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Great Lakes, and the Gulf of Mexico. This includes research and technology advancement to improve the integrity of mooring systems for floating offshore wind energy platforms and marine energy converters, as well as reducing or avoiding noise generation and propagation during the installation of fixed-bottom offshore wind foundations.
This funding program also supports efforts to deploy more offshore wind energy while protecting biodiversity and promoting ocean co-use, and to increase deployment of floating offshore wind energy.
Selectees
-- Award and cost share amounts are subject to change pending negotiations --
The projects selected for each topic area are listed below.
Topic Area 1: Reliable Moorings for Floating Offshore Wind and Marine Energy Systems
Projects in this Topic Area will address specific near-term needs informing mooring system designs for floating offshore wind and marine energy.
Subtopic 1a: Test Mooring Ropes for Fatigue
Projects in this subtopic area will physically test the long-term performance, fatigue (material wear and strength reduction from repeated loads over time) and other characteristics of synthetic fiber ropes likely to be used in floating offshore wind and/or marine energy systems.
Project Title: Bending Fatigue Evaluation of Various Belt Tension Members for Marine Energy Converters Moorings
Location: Coraopolis, PA
Award Amount: $837,835
Project Description: Develop a power transmission belt manufactured with high-quality fibers or steel cords and protective coatings that will allow reliable operation of the wave energy converter.
Project Title: Fatigue Testing of Nylon Mooring Ropes to Improve Design Standards for Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Installations
Location: Orono, ME
Award Amount: $1,000,000
Project Description: Advance the state of the art in nylon permanent moorings through multi-scale fatigue testing in collaboration with multiple leading rope suppliers to lower the cost of floating offshore wind systems.
Project Title: Qualification of Polyamide Ropes for Long-Term Mooring Floating Offshore Wind Applications
Location
s: Prairie Village, KSAward Amount: $738,862
Project Description: Compare a polyamide (PA6) rope against a polyester benchmark, with an overall goal of creating less stiff offshore wind mooring lines. Test and validate a PA6 rope design in Nogueira da Maia, Portugal and Houston, TX considering fatigue, stiffness, impact of installation-induced twist, and effectiveness of filter design for ropes with elasticity.
Subtopic 1b: Robust Sensor Systems for Mooring Condition Monitoring
Projects in this subtopic area will advance a condition monitoring instrumentation package for mooring lines that will lower operations and maintenance costs for floating offshore wind and/or marine energy converters.
Project Title: Mooring Line Autonomous Inspection and Condition Assessment using Resident Mission Bots
Location: Niskayuna, NY
Award Amount: $997,784
Project Description: Develop and test the first mooring line autonomous inspection and condition assessment technology using Resident Mission Bots (MOORCAMBOT) system, capable of performing unsupervised visual inspections and assessing mooring line conditions of floating offshore wind turbines.
Project Title: Development and Testing of a Modular Sensor Solution for Mooring Line Condition Monitoring
Location: Houston, TX
Award Amount: $984,375
Project Description: Acquire a sensor for long-term mooring line monitoring to better understand the reliability of floating offshore wind turbine mooring lines. The sensor will collect data for the evaluation of mooring line tension, vibrations, the presence of derelict fishing gear, vessel strikes, anchor drags on mooring line or bottom chain, and damage to the anchors.
Subtopic 1c: Validate Shared Anchor/Shared Mooring Array Configurations
Projects in this subtopic area will physically test and validate shared anchor configurations of floating offshore wind energy arrays or marine energy arrays. A shared anchor attaches to multiple platforms or devices to keep them in place, and it must resist pulls from different directions.
Project Title: Floating Offshore Wind Shared Anchor Solution Validations Through Scaled Model Field Tests and Numerical Simulations
Location: College Station, TX
Award Amount: $932,194
Project Description: Advance shared anchor array modeling and perform a field demonstration of the deeply embedded ring anchor. The versatile deeply embedded ring anchor can be quietly installed in any soil, has multiline potential, and has omni-directional (all directions) loading capabilities—ensuring adaptability to fit any mooring or loading configuration.
Project Title: Validation of Shared Array Models with Physical Testing of Shared Anchors
Location: Chelmsford, MA
Award Amount: $999,323
Project Description: Physically test Triton’s anchor with shared anchor loading scenarios. Designed from the ground up for vertical and omni-directional loading, the anchor uses a group of deeply embedded helical piles. It is designed for local construction, smaller deployment vessels, and silent, environmentally friendly installation.
Topic Area 2: Noise Reduction for Fixed-Bottom Offshore Wind Installation
Projects in this Topic Area will address needs for additional technologies and strategies to reduce the noise associated with installation of fixed-bottom turbine foundations.
Subtopic 2a: Alternative, Quieter Foundation Types or Installation Methods
Each project in this subtopic area will assess the feasibility of one type of alternative foundation or installation method that makes the installation of foundations significantly quieter than using impact piling; and/or complete comprehensive noise measurements around the deployment site of an alternative foundation or installation method.
Project Title: Precise Measurements of Acoustic Pressure, Particle Motion and Seabed Vibration During Installation of Alternate Wind Turbine Foundations
Location: Santa Cruz, CA
Award Amount: $1,196,083
Project Description: Collect detailed measurements of radiated noise from alternate foundations and/or installation methods such as gravity base (large concrete structures that rest on the seabed) or suction buckets (foundations that are sunk into the seabed using pumps). The project will use innovative measurement tools that will measure multiple aspects of noise in both the water and seafloor.
Project Title: Self-Floating Alternatives for Quiet Installation of Offshore Wind Foundations and Overcoming Supply Chain Gaps
Location: Arvada, CO
Award Amount: $800,000
Project Description: Lead a comparative evaluation of suction bucket jackets (part of foundation above seabed) and gravity-based foundations, which have been successful for offshore wind projects in Europe and Asia. Self-floating designs of these foundation alternatives avoid impact hammering, and their fabrication employs more local skilled labor, uses less costly materials, and does not require costly and scarce heavy-lift vessels.
Project Title: Silent Helical Pile Foundations for Fixed Bottom Offshore Wind
Location: Chelmsford, MA
Award Amount: $1,303,792
Project Description: Conduct a feasibility study and take noise measurements of a helically installed turbine foundation. Evaluating and testing this foundation type could support fixed-bottom offshore wind installation by solving challenges created by impulsive and high intensity noise of impact hammer-driven installation.
Project Title: Gentle-Driving of Piles for U.S. Seabed and Marine Ecological Conditions
Location: Medford, MA
Award Amount: $488,232
Project Description: Conduct a desktop feasibility study of technology used to gently drive piles, which involves combining two vibration types that have been shown to install piles with lower forces and decreased noise emissions. This work will build on past European development and research to explore how gentle pile driving could address multiple environmental and installation challenges in U.S. waters.
Subtopic 2b: Noise Abatement Technologies
Projects in this subtopic area will demonstrate the effectiveness of noise abatement technologies that dampen noise from impact pile driving and cover the full range of relevant sound frequencies in a range of environments.
Project Title: Integrated Passive and Active Underwater Wave Control for Comprehensive Noise Abatement in Offshore Wind Installation
Location: West Lafayette, IN
Award Amount: $3,817,741
Project Description: Develop a triple-action noise abatement system to control noise propagation in both the seabed and water column (area between ocean surface and seafloor). This system will use a combination of noise-canceling sound waves and a noise mitigation sheath. The Purdue team will conduct modeling, laboratory testing, and open-water testing.
Project Title: Adaptive Hybrid Noise Mitigation for Offshore Wind Turbine Construction using Metamaterials (or engineered material)
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
Award Amount: $2,401,977
Project Description: Design and demonstrate a noise abatement system that uses acoustic metamaterials including a multi-layer inflatable balloon curtain to reduce noise moving through the water column, complemented by an array of metamaterial mini-piles to suppress noise traveling through the seabed. The team will conduct noise abatement simulations, laboratory experiments to verify simulations, and open-water scale prototype testing at DOE’s Sequim Bay test site in the PNNL Bio-Acoustics & Flow Laboratory.
Subtopic 2c: Knowledge Sharing and Information Synthesis
The project in this subtopic area will synthesize and share existing information on foundation types, installation techniques, and noise abatement technologies.
Project Title: Reducing Offshore Wind Installation Noise (ROWIN)
Location: Richland, WA
Award Amount: $500,000
Project Description: Synthesize information about noise reduction technologies; host expert workshops; and publish educational briefs, online tools, and a best practices guidance document on the Tethys environmental effects database.
This opportunity was funded by DOE’s Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) and Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO), who contributed a combined $15 million in funding, along with DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) who contributed almost $2 million in funding combined. The evaluation process also included technical contributions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Marine Fisheries Service.
Additional Information
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