Author: carrieann_barry

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Water Power Technologies Office is launching the Innovating Distributed Embedded Energy Prize (InDEEP) to encourage innovation in distributed embedded energy converter technology (DEEC-Tec, pronounced “deck tech”) to generate new, precommercial materials for wave energy conversion. This prize will challenge innovators from within and beyond wave energy to design and develop novel materials for marine energy applications that will lay the foundation for generating electricity at the grid scale. This three-phase, two-year competition is offering a combined cash prize pool up to $2.3 million. Teams will also receive technical support, teaming support, and other forms of mentorship throughout the prize to enable their success. Competitors will use innovative methods to identify DEEC-Tec components and materials that have high techno-economic potential for wave energy converters. Successful concepts developed through this prize are those that show the greatest techno-economic potential to contribute to grid-scale power systems. Through this prize, WPTO seeks to meet the following goals: Leverage innovation to systematically develop DEEC-Tec concepts that could...

The Centre for Ocean Energy Research (COER) at Maynooth University, Ireland has a further opportunity for 1 senior or entry level postdoctoral researcher on a prestigious new Science Foundation Ireland ocean energy project: Economic wave energy through technical innovation (SeaChange) Some project detail:                                                                                                                                       Despite the vast global wave energy potential, and the need to diversify the range of renewable energy sources to provide dispatchable carbon-free energy, the current cost of wave energy makes it relatively uneconomic in relation to other renewable, and non-renewable, energy forms. This project proposes a combination of strategic technological improvements, with both broad applicability as well as specific device improvements, to effect a significant impact on the economic performance of wave energy systems and produce the step change needed to accelerate the technical and commercial development of wave power.  Collaborators have been drawn from the University of Illinois (USA), CorPower Ocean AB (Sweden), National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL, USA) and TU Denmark. This project is funded by Science Foundation Ireland...

On 30th March 2023, Peter Conlon from the MU Commercialisation Office dropped by to give us a comprehensive overview of the world of intellectual property, particularly from the perspective of researchers and technology developers. As usual, the seminar prompted some lively debate about copyright protection in the world of Chat GBT open AI and the tension between the researcher’s perceived pressure to publish or to maintain radio silence until patents have been registered.  It was suggested that perhaps the solution lies in “know-how”; if the patent is registered can the know-how be documented and kept out of the public domain. Another issue for researchers can be dealing with non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).  It was emphasised that NDAs protect the conversations that may occur between entities, but they do not cover potential future inventions....

PhD and Postdoc positions available in wave energy 4 x 4-year structured PhD positions (full scholarship + fees + expenses) 2 x Postdoc/Senior Postdoc positions   to work on 2 projects funded by Science Foundation Ireland and NSF, featuring a range of industrial and academic international collaborators. Areas of interest include: Hydrodynamic modelling, fault-tolerant control, WEC lifetime enhancement, actuated WEC geometry, mechanical motion rectification, WEC lifetime enhancement, control co-design. For further information: go to positions or contact CarrieAnne.Barry@mu.ie...

Click here to read it in February's "Ocean Engineering"....

Check out this video by Dan Nikstrom, part of "Science at Home" funded by Midlands Science.  Its goal is to introduce young people to different areas of science.  In this episode, some of the COER team were asked to talk about wave energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjutxcpHVcs...

€18,500 stipend p.a. (tax free) + fees + research expenses  The Centre for Ocean Energy Research (COER) at Maynooth University, Ireland has further opportunities for two well-qualified applicants interested in PhD level research on a prestigious, new Science Foundation Ireland ocean energy project: Simultaneous stabilization and wave energy harvesting for a floating offshore wind/wave platform A tax-free stipend of €18,500 per year is available, and PhD fees are also covered. The project also provides adequate funding for equipment, materials and travel (conferences, courses, etc).  The positions are tenable for a 4-year structured PhD. Applicants should be well qualified to bachelors or master’s degree level in one of the following areas: electrical/electronic/control engineering, mechanical, naval architecture, or hydrodynamics, physics, mathematics, mathematical modelling or computer programming (more details below). The project will be supervised by Dr. Erivelton Nepomuceno (erivelton.nepomuceno@mu.ie). The project is described in more detail below: This project proposes the revolutionary new design of active stability-controlled hybrid wind/wave energy device platforms, which are significantly smaller in size...

1 x funded 4-year PhD studentships €18,500 stipend p.a. (tax free) + fees + research expenses The Centre for Ocean Energy Research (COER) at Maynooth University, Ireland has further opportunities for a well-qualified applicant interested in PhD level research on a prestigious, new ocean energy project: LEAP-HI – Control co-design for ocean wave energy conversion A tax-free stipend of €18,500 per year is available, and PhD fees are also covered. The project also provides adequate funding for equipment, materials and travel (conferences, courses, etc), as well as secondment to project partners. The position is tenable for a 4-year structured PhD. Applicants should be well qualified to bachelors or master’s degree level in one of the following areas: mechanical, electrical/electronic/control engineering, naval architecture, or hydrodynamics, physics, mathematics, mathematical modelling or computer programming (more details below). The project will be supervised by Prof. John Ringwood. The project is described in more detail below: This collaborative research project aims to establish methodologies for an integrated design paradigm for wave energy...

Science Night saw around 1,200 local families entertained by football playing robots, mind-enhancing "magic hats", robot demos, chemistry labs, quizzes and of course, our interactive wave energy devices at Maynooth University last Friday. We were delighted to get back to telling the next generation of engineers and scientists all about wave energy in person - giving them the chance to make waves that could spin a turbine or light up a display and encouraging them to ask questions of our researchers who bravely held the crowd's attention while trying not to get too wet from over-enthusiastic children (and parents!).                                           Sean Hughes and Christopher Barry from Robinstown NS...