Wave energy is far more predictable and continuous than other renewable generation (e.g. solar and wind). Our industry has increasingly diverted from large grid-scale experimentation to small-scale local generation in order to develop technologically and economically viable technologies to capture wave energy. If grid-scale wave power generation is the eventual goal, then we must forge a path that creates commercially competitive products at each step of the way.
Ocean Motion Technologies is at the forefront of this movement. Our team is fabricating the world’s first adaptive ocean wave energy converter that is controlled by an advanced artificial intelligence. Initially, we focus on off-grid, small-scale, low-power applications in markets for data buoys for ocean observation and navigation, offshore aquaculture, and coastal security and defense.
A few years ago, the company founder, Jack Pan, was deployed to Antarctica for one of his research expeditions. During this voyage, he noticed the inadequacy of incumbent power systems on data buoys and moorings (i.e. solar panels and batteries).
He wondered why the abundant and readily available ocean wave energy was not used to power oceanographic observation platforms. Upon his return to civilization, Jack founded Ocean Motion Tech to solve these technical challenges.
Current technologies for energy generation at sea are solar panels, batteries, miniature wind turbines and diesel generators. They are not well-adapted to marine environments and imposes a range of very high maintenance and repowering costs.
Commissioning crews and ships to travel to remote ocean buoys to refill diesel tanks or remove salt and debris from solar panels and wind turbines exceeds the unit cost of these products. Ocean wave energy is the natural choice for energy generation in these situations, but there is still no viable product.
Our product will significantly alleviate these problems for end users by producing a low maintenance energy solution that will lower the cost of collecting oceanographic and climate data, managing fishery and support offshore aquaculture, and supporting coastal security and defense apparatus at sea.
This innovative engineering and commercial approach championed by Ocean Motion is very timely. The United States’ Department of Energy has announced the “Powering the Blue EconomyTM” initiative. The goal of this new initiative is to pivot from large grid-scale experimentation to small-scale local generation in order to develop technologically and economically viable wave power technologies in existing markets.
This initiative will meet future market demands resulting from a paradigm shift to autonomous robotics and big-data infrastructures in the maritime and offshore energy industries. The power demand will require next-gen charging capability at sea and more reliable and cost-effective power sources on maritime observatory platforms.
Our product can aid national defense apparatuses by providing sustained power to ocean observing payloads and autonomous vehicles in harsh marine environments.Since energy generation is such a significant fraction of the overall cost of maintaining powered ocean buoys at sea, lowering maintenance cost could lead to a boom in ocean data gathering and analytics.
The dawn of the era of big blue data (i.e. the generation of much larger volumes of oceanic data than are currently generated) is expected to be driven by an internet of things (IOT) comprised of data buoys, cheaper and more reliable sensors, underwater vehicles and aerial drones.
The applications of big data in the marine environment are immense. Better data on fisheries can prevent overfishing by keeping tabs on fish populations while also identifying the location of schools of fish.
Remote defense buoys can help in the detection of unauthorized entry into national waters and assist the Coast Guards and Homeland Security monitor for illicit maritime transport, for example in interdiction of drug and human trafficking.
Better data from the ocean can improve weather forecasting, provide a better understanding of changing ocean environments and help in tsunami detection and prediction.At its core, our technology is an improvement on conventional and reliable wave energy conversion mechanisms.
However, it will be the first commercial artificial intelligence aided wave energy converter that can adapt to ambient sea states to optimize power output. As a result of the development process of this product, Ocean Motion Tech will introduce a new category of wave energy converters.
