Ocean Observing Prize Awards BUILD Contest Innovators Investigating Rechargeable Underwater Vehicles

In August 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced three winners of a $500,000 prize pool in the BUILD Contest, the second phase in the Powering the Blue Economy™: Ocean Observing Prize DEVELOP Competition. The prize challenges competitors to develop new ocean observing technologies powered by marine renewable energy.  

For the BUILD Contest, competing teams tested their marine energy-powered ocean observing prototypes in a state-of-the-art wave tank at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Carderock, Maryland. Each prototype was tested in the Maneuvering and Seakeeping Basin (also known as the U.S. Navy’s indoor ocean) and weathered a variety of wave conditions to demonstrate its capabilities through a data-collecting maneuvering mission and a wave-powered recharging session. Such devices have the potential to lengthen the amount of time ocean observing technologies can remain at sea to provide more coverage and collect higher-resolution data. Weather forecasters can use this information to more accurately predict hurricane intensities and paths. 

The Ocean Observing Prize is administered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System Office.