Oscilla Power has been selected for a $1.1 million Phase II SBIR award from the US Department of Energy. Oscilla will develop a novel underwater energy storage technology and investigate how large-scale farms of ocean wave energy devices can be best connected to the grid.
As part of this new project, Oscilla will further develop its energy storage concept and investigate the effect of interconnecting a 50MW farm of its Triton wave energy devices into a power grid.
The work is expected to indicate that large farms of wave energy devices can produce more reliable power than existing wind or solar plants.
“Although ocean waves have very high short-term variability, they are much more consistent over longer periods of time, which is a key advantage of wave energy. Understanding how very large farms of devices interact may help us identify further optimizations that will drive down the costs of utility-scale wave energy.”
Tim Mundon, VP Engineering for Oscilla
Oscilla Power will be working with Brayton Energy to develop the energy storage component of this new work. Brayton has previously developed an underwater compressed air energy storage system with the US DoE and Navy.
Oscilla Power will also be working with experts from Oregon State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to help understand the array and interconnection aspects for a 50MW farm of wave energy devices.
This work is expected to start shortly and will continue over the next two years.
