PRIMRE/Signature Projects/Wave-SPARC
< PRIMRE | Signature Projects
Signature Projects are intended to bring focus to a selection of the U.S. Departments of Energy's Water Power Technology Office (WPTO) projects. By designating a Signature Project, the project reports, data sets, and associated papers can be easily discoverable. By bringing together all aspects of a project, whether a completed legacy project or an ongoing investigation, the MRE community can be informed of what investigations have been undertaken, which have succeeded, what tools are available, and where gaps in information persist.
Wave-SPARC
- Project Purpose
- Marine energy technology development, specifically wave energy converters (WECs), has not yet delivered the desired commercial maturity or the desired techno-economic performance. Both are required for commercial readiness and economic viability. Historically, a technology’s progress, value and funding are driven by Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs). Originating primarily from the Space and Defense industries, TRLs focus on procedural implementation of technology developments of large and complex engineering challenges where cost or stakeholder input is neither mission critical nor a key design driver. For energy generation devices such as WECs and current energy converters (CECs), however, techno-economic performance should be considered early in the development process, when fundamental conceptual, operational and design choices have to be made.
- Project Description
- Sandia National Laboratories and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have developed assessment methods and identified technical challenges, both common and unique to the US WEC and CEC industries. This effort, known as Wave-SPARC (Systematic Process and Analysis for Reaching Commercialization), has provided an opportunity for WEC and CEC technology developers to systematically improve their technologies to make them economically viable for the commercial market. The team will also deliver early stage concepts with high economic promise for the industry to further advance and commercialize.
- Methods
- Wave-SPARC strives to implement the technology development trajectory that was identified as the most effective regarding development cost, time, and risk.
- Complete formulation of the wave or current energy problem statement in the form of technology solution agnostic functional requirements
- Holistic technology assessment methods and tool considering all cost and performance drivers applicable to early-stage wave energy technology concepts
- Stakeholder preferred technology requirements of an ideal WEC or CEC technology
- Adaptation and application of powerful established innovation tools for the invention and improvement of novel and high promise wave and current energy technology concepts.
- Findings
- Wave-SPARC provides the following benefits to the marine energy community:
- A holistic methodology to assess a WEC or CEC technology’s ability to achieve continental grid or Powering the Blue Economy (PBE) market competitiveness and acceptability.
- Streamlined technology development pathways enabling focused technology improvements through the identification of technology-specific and common “pain points.”
- Potential game-changing technology concepts that will provide the required step change reduction in LCOE when fully developed to commercial readiness by the marine energy industry
- Early-stage, high techno-economic performance concepts provided to industry on a non-exclusive basis.
Project Information
| Status: | Ongoing |
|---|---|
| Start Date: | 2014/10/01 |
| Source: | Wave-SPARC |
| Organization: | National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories |
| Contact: | Jochem Weber and Jesse Roberts |
For the implementation of this effective technology development path, the following methods and tools are required and have been developed:
For the development and application of the above methods and tools, a thorough systems engineering approach has been implemented.
This table lists documents associated with the Wave-SPARC project, including reports written by the project team and/or papers that have used the project outputs or are closely associated with them.
