NSF Award
2428195
There are more than 50,000 islands in the world, accounting for 17% of the total land area and inhabited by 10% of the global population. The US accounts for 18,617 islands, where the cost of electricity such as in Alaskan and Pacific islands can be 4-8 times higher than the average in the US. The same is true for remote coastal communities, such as 200 miles of Outer Banks of North Carolina, 120 miles of Florida Keys, and many islands in the Great Lakes. For power utilities, these communities rely on imported fossil fuels or miles of umbilical cables, which are vulnerable to earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes and storms. While the electricity supply is one of the challenges limiting socio-economic development of remote island and coastal communities, vast energy resources are available from ocean waves along the 95,471 miles of US coastline. The power density of ocean wave energy is over 10 times that of solar power and 5 times as much as wind power. Attempts to harvest this resource date back to 1799, when the first patent was issued. To date, about 250 concepts of wave energy converters (WECs) have been proposed, but none of these have achieved commercial success. There is not even a widely-accepted criterion by which to judge which WEC concept is most favorable. The objective of this project is to drive and achieve research convergence of ocean wave energy conversion for empowering remote coastal communities through transdisciplinary research across engineering, economics, environmental, and sociological dimensions. The team expects to achieve convergence for powering remote communities within 4-5 years. In the longer term, wave energy can directly benefit a large proportion of the U.S. population without long-distance transmission, since over 53% of the U.S. population is concentrated within 50 miles of the shoreline. The project will provide significant potential to improve the economic development of under-served coastal communities by identifying a practical route to renewable electricity, thereby increasing their resilience to natural disasters, and empowering the local economy. It will also substantially benefit education from K-12 to graduate students in four universities with an emphasis on professional skills development.<br/><br/>This project will drive convergence of ocean wave energy research through community-engaged decision making, 3D techno-economic socio-environmental assessment, and transdisciplinary co-design methodology. The goal will be achieved in two phases. Phase I will develop the WEC convergence roadmap, screen and down-select 2-3 lead WEC design concepts. This will be achieved by creating 3D assessment metrics to systematically evaluate technological feasibility, economic viability, and socioenvironmental acceptability in the early foundational concept and design stage. Phase II will investigate the leading design concepts through transdisciplinary co-design and optimization, and validate the convergence through community engagement and ocean tests. Inspired by the drug discovery process, the project will use a market-pull convergence procedure based on the needs of remote coastal communities to screen various WEC concepts from the beginning. This is in contrast to the prevailing approaches in wave energy research and development. The project includes a multidisciplinary team consisting of experts in engineering, environment, sustainability, social science and an external advisory board with community end users and OEM developers to implement a transdisciplinary, community-engaged approach to this research challenge.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
