Powering the Blue Economy: Energy Innovation for Ocean Observations

Summary and Expectations

Ocean observations underpin the Blue Economy, yet most of the ocean remains unexplored and poorly sampled, due in part to lack of sufficient energy to power instruments and platforms. Marine energy from waves, tides, ocean currents, and thermal gradients is plentiful, reliable and, when integrated with ocean observing technologies, could reduce or eliminate many energy constraints. Join representatives from the US Government (including DOE, NOAA, and others) along with international experts from across the ocean observation and marine energy communities to discuss how recently announced research initiatives and energy innovation can lead to entirely new capabilities in ocean observation.

Expected Outcomes/Recommendations

• Overcoming power limitations in ocean observing could provide tremendous value by providing new data streams and enabling new capabilities: proactive monitoring; high res BGC data; gliders that run climatology lines; further discussion.
• Reducing the timescale of design cycles is a major challenge for further innovation to integrate marine energy and observing platforms. Solutions include: linking communities; improving access to testing sites; more time for deep thinking.