University of Washington Expands Research Opportunities With TEAMER

This is the second in a series of articles highlighting projects advanced through the U.S. Testing Expertise and Access for Marine Energy Research (TEAMER) program. TEAMER provides marine energy technology researchers and developers with streamlined access to U.S.-based test facilities and world-class technical expertise. Since TEAMER launched in 2020, the program has supported more than 150 marine energy physical testing and numerical modeling projects with more than $16 million in technical support.

Environmental monitoring is critical to the successful development and deployment of marine energy devices, but opportunities to test these technologies in the water—tank, basin or field—alongside prototype marine energy converters are often hard to come by. But as the country transitions to a 100% clean energy economy, marine energy has tremendous potential as one of the last untapped renewable energy sources and testing is required to unlock it.

That’s one of the reasons why, in 2020, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) launched the TEAMER program. Sponsored by the Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) and directed by the Pacific Ocean Energy Trust, TEAMER gives developers and researchers the opportunity to test and refine their marine energy technologies at private industry organizations, academic institutions, and national laboratories within the TEAMER Facility Network.

For the University of Washington (UW), TEAMER’s support enabled testing of several environmental monitoring technologies. UW researchers were able to deploy and further develop their technologies and equipment, advancing the field of marine energy and enabling other researchers and technology developers to better understand how marine life interacts with deployed devices.

Free Drifting Measurement Systems

UW worked with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in July 2022 on open water testing of a drifting measurement device: The Drifting Acoustic Instrumentation System (DAISY). DAISYs were developed as part of the Triton Initiative to advance the readiness of environmental instrumentation to study turbines and wave energy converters (WECs). A DAISY is a free-drifting hydrophone—an underwater microphone—used to capture high fidelity underwater sound to help understand the effects of noise from marine energy devices on marine life. 

“For turbines and WECs, there’s a Goldilocks-level of sound between being so loud that it causes animals to avoid a large area, but not so quiet that there’s a risk of collision. We want the right level of sound,” explained Brian Polagye, a researcher affiliated with the Pacific Marine Energy Center.

Unfortunately, capturing underwater sound can be difficult. Pressure changes from waves and currents create turbulence around hydrophones that makes artificial sounds known as “flow noise.” UW researchers wanted to test the efficacy of using an egg-shaped fabric shell “flow shield” about 1.6 ft (0.5 m) in diameter and 2.6 ft (0.8 m) in length to minimize flow noise by creating pockets of still water around the hydrophones. 

With TEAMER’s help, UW was able to test the device and its flow shield in the strong currents of Puget Sound’s Admiralty Inlet with support from PNNL’s Marine and Coastal Research Laboratory. The team demonstrated the efficacy of the device and how to detect when flow noise is occurring. With this information, they also made clear recommendations on when and how to use flow shields that can be applied to other drifting or stationary hydrophones.

“With TEAMER open water support, we were able to work with the same folks who were involved in the original DAISY development, test the DAISY in stronger currents, and get favorable numbers that resulted in a paper that just got submitted. We wouldn’t have that paper without TEAMER support,” Polagye said.

Building on Past Successes

UW continued its environmental monitoring focus with TEAMER support to advance the Lander Adaptable Monitoring Package (LAMP). Researchers at UW began developing LAMP in 2016 with a suite of sensors including optical cameras, sonar, and hydrophones to capture real-time acoustic and visual observations of fish and other animals around a small tidal turbine. 

Since initial development of the technology, MarineSitu, a company spun off from UW’s Applied Physics Lab, advanced the data processing and detection algorithms and greatly increased their efficacy. When UW deployed a small tidal turbine at PNNL’s Marine and Coastal Research Laboratory in October 2023, TEAMER support helped MarineSitu refine detection models running in real time on the LAMP. These models allowed UW to capture rare, but important, events—like fish and seals approaching the turbine—and allow researchers to better understand animal interactions, behaviors, and potential risk assessments for marine energy devices.

The team now has multiple observations of animals around the turbine, including images of diving birds chasing fish through stopped rotors and fish interacting with the equipment. These images can help regulators and the public better understand what interactions with a turbine really look like. 

“This is data we would not have been able to get on our own. Getting that sort of first-hand data about animal interactions with turbines or the absence of them is really critical to moving forward,” said Polagye.

Modeling to Support Field Measurements

TEAMER has also allowed UW’s development of environmental technologies to benefit from PNNL’s numerical modeling expertise. After UW field tested a new technology for mapping tidal, river, and ocean currents with a series of drifting floats and receivers, researchers wanted to understand how these types of measurements could complement oceanographic models used for tidal energy resource assessments. Via TEAMER support, PNNL generated a simulation of the same location and time as the field test, allowing comparisons to be drawn with the horizontal and vertical water currents mapped by UW. The numerical modeling PNNL performed validated UW’s in water results. This demonstrated that the drifting floats, known as microFloats, could be a cost-effective method for conducting site assessments for river, tidal, and ocean energy resources. 

Tank Testing Core Technology

The impacts of TEAMER go beyond simply helping a single developer or organization. It can support students getting to explore the marine energy field and help generate interest in a career in marine energy. Most recently, TEAMER connected UW with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to conduct tank testing of a lab-scale WEC. The system, an “oscillating surge wave energy converter,” was developed at UW, but the wave basin on campus was too small to make relevant measurements to understand how it would respond to ocean waves. 

“Our project with NREL allowed us to make use of their larger tank, allowed students on the project to collaborate with NREL staff to see if that’s a direction they want to go with their career, and generated great data,” said Polagye. “This is exactly the kind of project that we had in mind when TEAMER launched. People get access to facilities that are better than they have and get to learn from the experience.” 

Overall, UW has been thrilled by the support they’ve received from TEAMER.

“TEAMER has been really fantastic in terms of being able to expand what we can get out of our individual projects. If we were doing this alone, we’d get something, but doing it with other partners through TEAMER really expands the impact of our work,” explained Polagye.

“And it’s always fun to collaborate too,” he added.

Interested in partnering with marine experts at world-class facilities to hone and develop your marine energy device? Learn more about requests for technical support through the TEAMER program.

Stay in the know with WPTO! Receive the latest information on funding opportunities, events, and other news by subscribing to the bimonthly The Water Column newsletter, as well as the comprehensive, monthly Water Wire newsletter.