PRIMRE/Prizes and Competitions/Marine Energy Collegiate Competition (MECC)

From Open Energy Information

U.S. Department of Energy Marine Energy Collegiate Competition (MECC)


Home Teams Partners

Visit the official MECC Page

Marine Energy Collegiate Competition: Powering the Blue Economy

Agenda for MECC FY24 now available! WPTO-MECC-Agenda-FY24.pdf

The Marine Energy Collegiate Competition has moved to the American-Made platform! Visit us on the new site to learn more .

The U.S. Department of Energy hosts a challenge for university students to advance one of the most up-and-coming industries: marine energy. This competition is designed to challenge interdisciplinary teams of undergraduate and graduate students to offer unique solutions to the burgeoning marine energy industry that can play a vital role in powering the blue economy, such as the applications seen in Figure 1.

Marine energy has the potential to provide reliable power to the blue economy, but further work is needed to optimize designs and reduce costs. The competition’s objectives are to bring together diverse groups of students from multiple disciplines to explore opportunities for marine energy technologies to benefit other existing maritime industries via real-world concept development experiences.

an illustration with nine boxes, each featuring marine renewable energy devices: ocean observation and navigation aid; recharge station and autonomous underwater vehicle; forms of aquaculture; marine algae farm; separation, purification, and adsorption; reverse osmosis facility; a disaster area; an isolated community; and a hydrogen fueling station.
Figure 1. Potential marine renewable energy applications. Click on the image to view details in a larger version. Images courtesy of Molly Grear, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Competition Elements

For the competition, teams of students competed in four challenges:

  • The Business Plan Challenge, in which teams identified a promising blue economy market and determined the best marine energy application to address within that market
  • The Technical Design Challenge, in which teams designed a marine energy-powered device to serve consumers within the team’s chosen market
  • The Build and Test Challenge, in which teams built and tested a scaled prototype of their concept
  • The Community Connections Challenge, in which teams conducted outreach activities to educate their communities about marine energy.
an illustration with two branches: power at sea that lists ocean observation, offshore marine aquaculture, seawater mining, marine algae, and underwater vehicle charging and coastal communities that lists desalination, isolated communities, and coastal resiliency and disaster recovery
Figure 2. Potential marine power applications. Click on the image to view details in a larger version.

Who Can Participate?

Competition organizers encourage undergraduate and graduate students from post-secondary institutions (including colleges, universities, community colleges, and trade schools) to apply. Both U.S. and non-U.S. institutions can apply, but only U.S. institutions are eligible to receive Water Power Technologies Office funding. Partnerships between U.S. and non-U.S. institutions are welcomed.

Why Should Teams Participate?

The Marine Energy Collegiate Competition and Hydropower Collegiate Competition offer students the chance to engage with leaders of marine energy and hydropower companies and learn about the sector from industry insiders. Industry members have played an important role in the success of these competitions by providing educational presentations, serving as judges during the final events, and networking with students to offer career advice and make connections that helped them land jobs.

Marine Energy Information

STEM & Workforce Development Resources


This portal is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) under Contract Number DE- AC36-08GO28308 with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Contract Number DE-AC05-76RL01830 with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Contract Number DE-NA0003525 with Sandia National Laboratories, as part of the MHK Data Communities project. The United States Government retains, and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes.

Retrieved from "https://openei.org/w/index.php?title=PRIMRE/Prizes_and_Competitions/Marine_Energy_Collegiate_Competition_(MECC)&oldid=1060476"