Sponsor: Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command
Project Leads: Geoffrey Cram (UW), Burke Hales (OSU)
The primary goal of this project is to develop, deploy and operate a seafloor-based, rechargeable battery system, termed the Seafloor Power Vault, to demonstrate the feasibility of an island microgrid (i.e. a power distribution system not connected to a utility grid) that is capable of being charged by a marine hydrokinetic generator such as a wave energy converter. For this project, power will be generated by a modified NOMAD buoy and transmitted to the seafloor battery through an electrical-optical-mechanical umbilical cable.
The 225 kWh battery will be protected from the ocean environment by a sealed, one-atmosphere housing attached to a mud mat, deployed at a depth of 50 m and approximately 2 miles offshore at the PacWave North site, near Newport Oregon. This system will be capable of powering other devices on the seafloor, as well as supporting communications to shore via a cellular connection from the NOMAD buoy.
