Winners of American-Made Challenges Advance Marine Monitoring and Renewable Energy Innovation

Oceans make up two-thirds of the Earth’s surface and have provided food, livelihood, and adventure to untold billions of people throughout human history. Yet, eighty-five percent of the ocean is unmapped and unexplored. Eleven new winners of the American-Made Challenges Ocean Observing Prize show promise for advancing both ocean science and the sustainable use of marine resources. 

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) American-Made Challenges initiative was created in 2018 to accelerate domestic innovation, entrepreneurship, and manufacturing. The challenges cover an array of environmental and energy projects such as solar desalination, lithium-ion battery recycling, fish protection, and ocean monitoring. 

Ocean data collection is important to understand and improve ecosystem health, but ocean sensors are limited in their ability to stay charged in harsh marine conditions. The Ocean Observing Prize, a joint program run by the DOE and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), aims to advance ocean data collection while addressing this problem. The winners of the competition’s first round were announced on April 2, and represent a range of projects that integrate ocean monitoring platforms with marine renewable energy systems.

The first phase of the competition, DISCOVER, asked for submissions of innovative concepts spanning five themes: unmanned vehicles; buoys, floats, and tags; ocean communications and underwater navigation; extreme environments; and “blue sea” concepts that do not fit into one distinct theme. Of the eleven winning teams announced, ten received $10,000 and one received the grand prize of $25,000.

The grand prize winner was xNode: A Flexible Ocean Science Platform, developed by CalWave Power Technologies, Inc. xNode is a concept for a self-charging data and sensor node that would advance the “Ocean Internet of Things,” which is a network of Internet-connected objects in the ocean. Enhancing the connectivity of sensors in the ocean, as xNode proposes, would allow researchers to more easily collect and share environmental data over long distances. xNode’s proposed project would acoustically monitor fisheries, support autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) recharging, data recovery, processing, and transmission, atmospheric sensing, and the ability to communicate with other sensors.   

The other ten winners can be found here. Winning projects included concepts for sensors that continuously collect and transmit data using high-bandwidth Internet, monitoring floats fitted with technology to capture the ocean’s thermal energy, unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) charging stations equipped with sheltered docking areas, and zero-emission buoys capable of collecting a variety of environmental data. The top teams represented marine energy startups, engineering firms, energy consultancies, and teams of university students.

The second and final phase of the competition, DEVELOP, will open August 18, 2020. Participants in the DEVELOP competition will design, build, and test prototypes of systems that integrate marine energy and ocean monitoring, with $3 million in prizes available. Instead of five possible thematic areas proposed in the DISCOVER competition, entries to the DEVELOP phase will focus on Buoys and Autonomous Systems. Participation in the DEVELOP competition is not limited to winners or participants of the DISCOVER phase.

Prizes such as those given by American-Made Challenges provide an invaluable opportunity for scientists and entrepreneurs to turn their talents towards nationally critical concerns that may struggle to attract private sector investment.  Millions of dollars in cash prizes, along with access to a broad “American-Made Network” that includes industry experts and national lab facilities, have been awarded to dozens of projects since American-Made Challenges began in 2018. With millions more up for grabs before the end of the year, American-Made Challenges will be one to watch as a policy solution that furthers ambitious environmental and economic goals.

Authors: Abby Neal and Amber Todoroff