DOE and NOAA Open Ocean Observing Prize
Open of Discover Competition: November 14th, 2019
Close of Discover Competition: February 12th, 2020
Discover Competition Prize Purse: $125,000 distributed over up to 11 winners
Total Ocean Observing Prize Purse: $3 million in cash prizes and in-kind awards over two competitions.
Link to Enter: https://americanmadechallenges.org/oceanobserving/
PRIZE OVERVIEW
The Powering the Blue Economy™: Ocean Observing Prize challenges innovators to develop solutions that integrate marine renewable energy with ocean observation platforms in order to revolutionize our ability to monitor, manage, and understand the ocean.
The Powering the Blue Economy Initiative is a new R&D effort being led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) to investigate alternative non-grid applications for marine energy. This joint prize between WPTO and the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®) program at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) seeks to encourage energy innovation in ocean observation technologies. The Ocean Observing Prize will consist of a series of competitions over several years to develop marine energy solutions that meet the needs of ocean researchers, agencies, explorers, and other end-users in the ocean observing community. The development of the prize was coordinated through NOPP and the execution of the Prize will be supported by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
COMPETITION STRUCTURE
The Ocean Observing Prize consists of two competitions that are designed to incentivize accelerated innovation in marine energy and ocean observations. The first competition, the Discover Competition, will solicit novel concepts that integrate ocean observing technologies with marine energy systems to address end-user needs across five broad themes: (1) Unmanned Vehicles; (2) Communications and Underwater Navigation; (3) Extreme Environments; (4) Buoys, Floats, and Tags; and (5) Blue Sea Ideas (i.e., other). After the Discover Competition, the second competition, the Develop Competition, will focus on a single theme and challenge contestants to develop their ideas into a functioning prototype. Together, the Discover and Develop Competitions will award up to $3 million in cash prizes, as well as other in-kind awards such as access to facilities, specialized equipment, and subject matter experts.
