DE-FOA-0003415 Oceans of Opportunity FOA.pdf

Template Version November 2023

EERE T 540.117-01: Funding Opportunity Announcement

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)

Oceans of Opportunity: U.S. Wave Energy Open Water Testing

Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) Number: DE-FOA-0003415

FOA Type: Initial Assistance Listing Number: 81.087

FOA Issue Date: Sept 18, 2024 Informational Webinar: Oct 9, 2024 Submission Deadline for Concept Papers: Oct 25, 2024

5:00 p.m. ET Submission Deadline for Full Applications: January 30, 2025

5:00 p.m. ET Expected Submission Deadline for Replies to Reviewer Comments: April 1, 2025

5:00 p.m. ET Expected Date for EERE Selection Notifications: June 2025 Expected Timeframe for Award Negotiations: June – Aug 2025

• Applicants must submit Concept Paper(s) by 5:00 p.m. ET on the due date listed above to be eligible to submit a Full Application.

• The U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency (EERE) is launching a pilot program in its newly updated portal for funding opportunities — the EERE Program Information Center. This FOA is being published as part of EERE’s pilot program. All other announcements will continue to be published in eXCHANGE.

• Applicants must designate primary and backup points-of-contact in EERE eXCHANGE with whom EERE will communicate to conduct award negotiations. If an application is selected for award negotiations, it is not a commitment to issue an award. It is imperative that the applicant/selectee be responsive during award negotiations and meet negotiation deadlines. Failure to do so may result in cancelation of further award negotiations and rescission of the selection.

• To apply to this FOA, applicants must register with and submit application materials through the EERE Program Information Center at https://epicweb.ee.doe.gov/EPICWeb.

To do so, applicants are advised to complete the following steps, which are required for application submission:

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and (3) maintain an active SAM registration with current information at all times during which it has an active federal award or an application or plan under consideration by a federal awarding agency (unless the applicant is excepted from those requirements under 2 CFR 25.110). DOE may not make a federal award to an applicant until the applicant has complied with all applicable UEI and SAM requirements. If an applicant has not fully complied with the requirements by the time DOE is ready to make a federal award, DOE will determine that the applicant is not qualified to receive a federal award and use that determination as a basis for making a federal award to another applicant.

o NOTE: Due to the high number of UEI requests and SAM registrations, entity legal business name and address validations are taking longer than expected to process. Entities should start the UEI and SAM registration process as soon as possible. If entities have technical difficulties with the UEI validation or SAM registration process they should use the HELP feature on SAM.gov. SAM.gov will address service tickets in the order in which they are received and asks that entities not create multiple service tickets for the same request or technical issue. Additional entity validation resources can be found here: GSAFSD Tier 0 Knowledge Base - Validating your Entity.

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page, which provides several useful resources, including quick guides and training videos. You may also contact the EERE Program Information Center Helpdesk for assistance at eere-epichelpdesk@ee.doe.gov.

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i

Table of Contents

Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................................ i

I. Funding Opportunity Description

A. Background and Context

i. Background and Purpose

ii. Technology Space and Strategic Goals

B. Topic Areas Information Applicable to all Topic Areas Topic Area 1: Open Water Testing and System Validation for Distributed Applications Topic Area 2: Open Water Testing and System Validation for Community Applications Topic Area 3: Open Water Testing and System Validation for Utility Applications C. Applications Specifically Not of Interest D. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion E. Authorizing Statutes

II. Award Information

A. Award Overview

i. Estimated Funding

ii. Period of Performance

iii. New Applications Only

B. EERE Funding Agreements

i. Cooperative Agreements

ii. Funding Agreements with Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDCs)

III. Eligibility Information

A. Eligible Applicants

i. Domestic Entities

ii. Foreign Entities

B. Cost Sharing

i. Legal Responsibility

ii. Cost Share Allocation

iii. Cost Share Types and Allowability

iv. Cost Share Contributions by FFRDCs

v. Cost Share Verification

vi. Cost Share Payment

C. Compliance Criteria D. Responsiveness Criteria E. Other Eligibility Requirements

i. Requirements for DOE/NNSA FFRDCs Listed as the Applicant

ii. Requirements for DOE/NNSA and Non-DOE/NNSA FFRDCs Included as a Subrecipient

F. Limitation on Number of Concept Papers and Full Applications Eligible for Review G. Questions Regarding Eligibility

IV. Application and Submission Information

A. Application Process

i. Additional Information on the EERE Program Information Center

B. Application Forms C. Content and Form of the Concept Paper D. Content and Form of the Full Application

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ii

i. Full Application Content Requirements

ii. SF-424: Application for Federal Assistance (required)

iii. Technical Volume

iv. Resumes

v. Letters of Commitment

vi. Impacted Indian Tribes Documentation

vii. Statement of Project Objectives (SOPO)

viii. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan

ix. Budget Justification Workbook

x. Summary for Public Release

xi. Summary Slide

xii. Subrecipient Budget Justification (if applicable)

xiii. Budget for DOE/NNSA FFRDC (if applicable)

xiv. Authorization for Non-DOE/NNSA or DOE/NNSA FFRDCs (if applicable)

xv. SF-LLL: Disclosure of Lobbying Activities

xvi. Waiver Requests (if applicable)

xvii. Current and Pending Support

xviii. Transparency of Foreign Connections

xix. Potentially Duplicative Funding Notice

xx. Community Partnership Documentation (Optional)

xxi. Testing, Measurement, and Data Collection Plan

E. Content and Form of Replies to Reviewer Comments F. Post Selection Information Requests G. Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) and System for Award Management (SAM) H. Submission Dates and Times I. Intergovernmental Review J. Funding Restrictions

i. Allowable Costs

ii. Pre-Award Costs

iii. Performance of Work in the United States (Foreign Work Waiver)

iv. Construction

v. Foreign Travel

vi. Equipment and Supplies

vii. Build America Buy America Requirements for Infrastructure Projects

viii. Lobbying

ix. Risk Assessment

x. Invoice Review and Approval

xii. Affirmative Action and Pay Transparency Requirements

xiii. Foreign Collaboration Considerations

V. Application Review Information

A. Technical Review Criteria

i. Concept Papers

ii. Full Applications

iii. Criteria for Replies to Reviewer Comments

B. Standards for Application Evaluation C. Other Selection Factors

i. Program Policy Factors D. Evaluation and Selection Process

i. Overview

ii. Pre-Selection Interviews

iii. Pre-Selection Clarification

iv. Recipient Responsibility and Qualifications

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iii

v. Selection E. Anticipated Notice of Selection and Award Negotiation Dates

VI. Award Administration Information

A. Award Notices

i. Ineligible Submissions

ii. Concept Paper Notifications

iii. Full Application Notifications

iv. Applicants Selected for Award Negotiations

v. Alternate Selection Determinations

vi. Unsuccessful Applicants

B. Administrative and National Policy Requirements

i. Registration Requirements

ii. Award Administrative Requirements

iii. Foreign National Participation

iv. Subaward and Executive Reporting

v. National Policy Requirements

vi. Environmental Review in Accordance with National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

vii. Applicant Representations and Certifications

viii. Statement of Federal Stewardship

ix. Statement of Substantial Involvement

x. Subject Invention Utilization Reporting

xi. Intellectual Property Provisions

xii. Reporting

xiii. Go/No-Go Review

xiv. Conference Spending

xv. Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) Financing Statements

xvi. Real Property and Equipment

xvii. Implementation of Executive Order 13798, Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty

xviii. Participants and Collaborating Organizations

xix. Current and Pending Support

xx. U.S. Manufacturing Commitments

xxi. Interim Conflict of Interest Policy for Financial Assistance

xxii. Data Management Plan

xxiii. Fraud, Waste, and Abuse

xxiv. Human Subjects Research

C. Program Down-Select

VII. Questions/Agency Contacts

VIII. Other Information

FOA Modifications Government Right to Reject or Negotiate Commitment of Public Funds Treatment of Application Information Evaluation and Administration by Non-Federal Personnel F. Notice Regarding Eligible/Ineligible Activities G. Notice of Right to Conduct a Review of Financial Capability H. Requirement for Full and Complete Disclosure I. Retention of Submissions J. Title to Subject Inventions K. Government Rights in Subject Inventions Rights in Technical Data

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iv

M. Copyright N. Export Control O. Prohibition on Certain Telecommunications and Video Surveillance Services or Equipment P. Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Q. Annual Independent Audits R. Informational Webinar

Appendix A – Cost Share Information

Appendix B – Waiver Requests For: 1. Foreign Entity Participation; and 2. Foreign Work

Appendix C – Buy America Requirements for Infrastructure Projects Required Use of American Iron, Steel, Manufactured Products, and Construction Materials

Appendix D – Definition of Technology Readiness Levels

Appendix E – List of Acronyms

Appendix F – Design Basis Content Listing

Appendix G – DOE Marine Energy Data Repository Plan

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I. Funding Opportunity Description

A. Background and Context

i. Background and Purpose The Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) is issuing this funding opportunity announcement (FOA), “Oceans of Opportunity: U.S. Wave Energy Open Water Testing”, to significantly accelerate the design, fabrication, and testing of multiple wave energy converters (WECs). WPTO plans to open a stage-gated, five-year, up to $112.5 million funding opportunity to advance U.S. wave energy technology commercial adoption.

This opportunity focuses on three marine energy pathways: distributed energy applications, community energy solutions, and utility energy generation.

Distributed wave energy efforts provide power for off-grid applications at sea that can include but are not limited to ocean observation, aquaculture, and marine carbon dioxide removal. Community energy efforts aim to support community wave energy projects and develop nearshore energy solutions for coastal communities and industries. Community-driven solutions could provide power or water delivery for coastal and island-invested users and may or may not be connected to an electric grid. Utility wave energy efforts seek to maximize energy generation, ensuring grid stability and reliability, and promote sustainability by supporting the deployment of grid-connected marine energy technologies.

Awards selected under this funding opportunity will be subject to stage-gate reviews—specifically, a down-select process at the end of the first Budget Period (BP) and Go/No-Go (GNG) reviews for subsequent BPs (see Section I.B for topic area (TA) stage information and Section VI.C for program down-select information). This stage-gated approach is intended to reduce risks for deployments, increase the potential for commercial adoption, and offer additional benefits to quickly advance WECs. This opportunity will support long-duration (e.g., up to two years), in-water testing of WECs, which is critical to industry and investors to demonstrate technology readiness.

Building a clean and equitable energy economy and addressing the climate crisis is a top priority of the Biden Administration. This FOA will advance the Biden Administration’s goals to achieve carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035 and to “deliver an equitable, clean energy future, and put the United States on a path to achieve net-zero emissions, economy-wide, by no later than 2050”1 to the

1 Executive Order 14008, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” January 27, 2021.

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benefit of all Americans. The Department of Energy (DOE) is committed to pushing the frontiers of science and engineering, catalyzing clean energy jobs through research, development, demonstration, and deployment (RDD&D), and ensuring environmental justice and inclusion of underserved communities.

The research and development (R&D) activities to be funded under this FOA will support the government-wide approach to the climate crisis by driving the innovation that can lead to the deployment of clean energy technologies, which are critical for climate protection. Specifically, this FOA is intended to fund open water testing of WECs, which is critical to the development of wave energy technologies. Activities include validating current system performance, understanding durability and survivability, identifying and solving operational challenges, collecting robust data, and validating models. Ultimately, these activities are needed to fully develop technologies that can survive and perform in harsh ocean environments and provide carbon-free electricity and/or potable water using the power of ocean waves.

Water Power Technologies Office Priorities The opportunities to harness marine energy are abundant. The total available marine energy resource in the United States is equivalent to approximately 57% of U.S. power generation. Even if only a small portion of this technical resource potential is captured, marine energy technologies would make significant contributions to the nation’s energy needs. These resources are also highly predictable, making them promising contributors to a stable, reliable clean energy grid. For example, the daily and seasonal cycles of marine energy resources make them an excellent complement to other renewable energy sources like wind energy and solar power.

WPTO’s Marine Energy Program conducts research, development, demonstration, and commercial activities that advance the development of reliable, cost-competitive wave energy technologies and reduce barriers to deployment.

Since 2008, WPTO has funded wave energy deployments. Key projects include the development and testing of various WECs at the U.S. Navy’s Wave Energy Test Site (WETS) located at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, deployment tests at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s pier in San Diego, California, and deployments of wave-powered desalination WECs at Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head, North Carolina. These in-water projects tested new methodologies for marine installations and measurements to optimize wave energy capture effectively. All these projects were tested in challenging environments, including https://epic.ee.doe.gov/EPICWeb/#/public/submission/opportunityDetail/6fc227b1148f596a1d411707ff80354a

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hurricane-level waves. The tests are usually short lived and, while they provide excellent data and lessons learned, a more prolonged testing program (multi-year) is necessary. This FOA is set up to address long duration, open water testing that contribute:

• Technological advancements: Safe and efficient open water deployments will contribute to technological progress by proving and improving reliability, durability, and wave energy conversion efficiency of these WEC systems at all scales under operational conditions.

• Data collection and analysis: New development risk tools and methodologies for assessing the impact of wave energy technologies on marine wildlife ensures that environmental considerations are integrated into the design and deployment of these systems, promoting environmentally sustainable development.

• Economic impact: Wave energy projects help capture capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenditure (OPEX) data that identifies where industry needs to innovate to reduce overall costs.

U.S. Wave Energy Progression WPTO’s annual appropriations have increased over the years. As a result, WPTO has increased funding for U.S. WEC designs focused on multiple scales.

Figure 1 – ANNUAL APPROPRIATED FUNDING LEVELS

Significant funding opportunities to date include the Wave Energy Prize in 2016.

This prize was a competition to identify and accelerate the development of wave

$9

$30 $36

$22

$36 $35 $41 $41 $45

$59 $70 $70

$109 $109 $112 $120

$141

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$20

$40

$60

$80

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$120

$140

$160

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024An nu al A pp ro pr ia tio ns in M ill io ns o f D ol la rs

Fiscal Year

WPTO's Marine Energy Program Budget Over Time https://epic.ee.doe.gov/EPICWeb/#/public/submission/opportunityDetail/6fc227b1148f596a1d411707ff80354a

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energy devices and several innovative WECs emerged. In 2017, several WEC developers received funding to support device testing and validation at WETS in Hawaii. In 2019 and 2021, WPTO funded wave energy innovators to design devices that could potentially be tested at the PacWave South test site. WPTO also funded fit-for-purpose infrastructure to support advancements in WEC testing and operational performance. The PacWave South test site, located off the Oregon coast, will provide a comprehensive test ground for WECs. It is expected to be fully operational in 2025 and will be the largest state-of-the-art, pre-permitted, accredited wave energy grid-connected test site in the world.

From 2020 to 2022, WPTO also supported multiple projects aimed at reducing the cost of wave energy and involved deploying and demonstrating WECs in real-world conditions to gather performance data and assess reliability.

Throughout all these projects, WPTO and the wave energy developer community identified a significant barrier to progressive technology development—a lack of consistent, long-term funding that supports long-term, in-water testing. The inherent inefficiencies for technology developers to stop development during periods between WPTO funding opportunities significantly impacts demonstration and testing lessons learned, long-term data collection, and the ability to attract sustained investment through the technology valley of death while retaining good engineering staff. This FOA is set to address these inefficiencies.

ii. Technology Space and Strategic Goals

The technology space for wave energy is diverse and evolving, with multiple innovative approaches aimed at harnessing the vast potential of the U.S. wave energy resource, which has an estimated technical potential of 1,400 terawatt hours per year.

This FOA seeks applications to address the design, fabrication, and field testing of WECs, targeting end-use applications covered in the FOA TAs. The primary goal for this FOA is to accelerate the commercialization of the U.S. wave energy industry through open water field testing of wave energy systems and sub-systems. The scope of this FOA includes WEC technologies across different sizes and markets, including grid-connected and non-grid-connected applications. This multi-year funding model should accelerate the wave energy sector’s commercialization by demonstrating the device designs with the highest potential.

In the first year, TA awardees will undergo a technology, cost, permitting, and stakeholder assessment. These evaluations will inform a down-select on the https://epic.ee.doe.gov/EPICWeb/#/public/submission/opportunityDetail/6fc227b1148f596a1d411707ff80354a

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most promising designs within each TA (see Section I.B for TA stage information and Section VI.C for program down-select information). Year two and beyond will progress the technologies through further design optimization and fabrication with long-term, open water testing likely occurring in years three through five. The projects will progress through stage gates, i.e., comprehensive reviews by subject-matter experts, before field testing begins to ensure that only the most viable projects advance.

The scope of this FOA also includes:

• Initial technology assessments in year one of up to 17 devices.

• Down-select of the most promising WEC designs to up to 10 devices.

• Progression through stage gates validating design decisions; cost efficiency;

installation, operations, and maintenance (IO&M) plans; and fit to end use.

The overarching goals of this FOA include:

• Generating high quality public data sets, lessons learned, and best practices.

• Demonstrating the ability of wave energy systems to meet potential customer requirements.

• Validating cost efficiency and performance improvements proposed by developers.

• Validating and informing the direction of foundational wave energy R&D.

• Promoting U.S. wave energy supply chain.

• Improving management and mitigation of project risks.

• Improving health, safety, and environment (HS&E) WPTO marine energy programmatic requirements.

Strategic Goals Topic Area 1 Innovation of distributed marine energy technologies could allow marine energy to become an economically viable option to meet non-grid energy demands of the blue economy and/or enhance non-grid market capabilities at sea. Moreover, development of distributed marine energy technologies can generate benefits across the entire marine energy industry. Distributed marine energy typically faces shorter implementation times as it is subject to less complex regulatory structures than grid-connected devices. Additionally, distributed devices are often smaller, easier, and more affordable to deploy. Taken together, these factors allow for more deployment opportunities that can increase valuable data to fill knowledge gaps for offshore energy and environmental monitoring applications, helping to accelerate the advancement of marine energy technologies. Ultimately, by pursuing opportunities for marine energy to meet non-grid needs, a spillover effect is expected that leads to advances in marine energy readiness for more traditional utility-scale electrical grid markets and potentially other unforeseen opportunities.

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Strategic Goals Topic Area 2 Coastal and island communities and blue economy end users are often located in challenging environments for delivering critical energy services and typically have high energy costs, minimal energy storage, and vulnerable energy systems. Facing immediate impacts of climate change and natural hazards, these communities and end users also have unique resiliency needs across their respective social and physical infrastructures. While these challenges to reliability and demonstration are formidable, they also present an opportunity for technology advancement and validation of WEC technologies. Smaller, decentralized community and blue economy end-user energy systems are a growing market globally, where it can be less costly to develop local power generation sources connected to off-grid or islanded microgrids. Communities can present opportunities to drive innovation faster for wave energy technologies. Successful demonstration via this opportunity could effectively establish the first representative and replicable WECs powering coastal and/or island microgrids in the United States, supporting optimization, high-performance, and safe operation to help rapidly advance devices toward commercialization. For the purposes of this opportunity, community can be defined broadly to include many facets of the ocean economy, such as electric cooperatives, community economic development, defense facilities, remote communities, local factories, industrial sites, resilient power systems, novel blue economy/ocean technology, ports, and harbors.

TA2 intends to focus on the development and testing of technologies to significantly accelerate the design, fabrication, and testing of multiple WECs at a range of scales and purposes. This TA aims to support small-scale wave energy projects and the development of nearshore energy solutions for coastal communities and blue economy end users. These wave-powered solutions could provide power or water delivery. The grid pathway for WECs has its own cost and design cycles based on levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and delivering power at scale, whereas the community-scale pathway has a unique opportunity for delivering reliable power near the shore at a smaller scale. The economics of wave energy are unknown, and this pathway may reduce uncertainties related to cost and reliability. Two key themes for the technology space are:

• Minimizing the risks and/or technical barriers of developing marine energy technologies by focusing on nearshore environments and shore-based infrastructure, which avoid the most challenging wave environments and associated costs.

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• Testing will potentially provide an alternative path to de-risking community-scale solutions by developing strategies to extract energy from the resource without a focus on LCOE optimization. WECs aiming to optimize LCOE often overdesign structural components and power take-off (PTO) and mooring systems to squeeze every bit of power available from a resource, which likely increases costs and potentially decreases reliability.

Many of the technology strategies described in this TA build on the Powering the Blue Economy’s Resilient Coastal Communities portfolio in WPTO by combining approaches to invest across a varied landscape, bridging smaller, distributed devices to strategic niche opportunities to develop utility-scale wave energy devices. A clear focus is on nearshore technologies as defined by the following three technology spaces: (1) small-scale power systems, (2) coastal structure integrated WECs, and (3) wave-powered desalination.

Small Power Systems Coastal Structure Integrated WEC

Wave-Powered Desalination

Grid-connected via islanded microgrids

Off-grid applications in remote coastal or island communities

Maritime and shoreside facilities (e.g., ports, seafood processing, municipal water systems)

WEC installed along a coastal structure (e.g., breakwater) that protects an area against waves, storm surges, and coastal flooding

WEC that desalinates seawater using a hydraulic and/or electric power conversion system

WPTO’s goals are to show how WEC technologies can support community and blue economy end-user transitions to a resilient and renewable energy system. A key goal of this TA is to find a balance between end-user priorities and the opportunity for WEC developers, which may drive longer-term value, expedite regulatory and permitting processes, and benefit developers by supporting and integrating many components of project development. In addition, technology demonstrations will provide critical feedback to central R&D questions, such as improving the siting and marinization of marine energy systems to understand how they can be deployed in an environmentally responsible way and survive in harsh, highly corrosive, and energetic environments.

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Strategic Goals Topic Area 3 The WPTO programmatic focus for wave energy utility developments is based on several strategic goals that demonstrate the value of connecting wave energy to the U.S. electricity grid.

• Maximize energy generation from wave resources (greater than 500 kilowatts

(kW) to the megawatt scale), which involves optimizing the design, deployment, and operation of wave energy devices to enhance efficiency and output. Goals include reducing downtime and improving predictability of energy generation to better match electric utility supply with consumer demand.

• Ensure grid stability and reliability with the key goal of ensuring that integration of wave energy to the grid does not compromise grid stability and reliability. This involves developing technologies and implementing strategies that manage the intermittent nature of marine energy sources and mitigate their impact on the grid. Improving forecasting techniques, enhancing grid flexibility through energy storage and/or demand response measures, and implementing grid-friendly control systems for wave energy devices to provide grid support services such as frequency regulation and voltage control are all vital goals for grid stability and reliability.

• Promote sustainability and demonstrate grid-connected wave energy technologies’ value either as stand-alone systems or co-located with other renewable energy technologies to decarbonize the grid. Other sustainability goals focus on conducting environmental assessments to identify and mitigate potential adverse effects of wave energy projects on the marine ecosystems where they are deployed.

• Accelerate foundational and subsystem R&D areas of interest, including mechanical load data collection for structural health and monitoring systems, integration of energy storage systems, control methodologies for survivability in extreme sea states, and demonstrations of material R&D to improve capital and operational expenditure costs.

The resulting analytical results and data collected from these TA efforts should be made publicly available to the greatest extent possible without infringing on developers’ intellectual property (IP) at the conclusion of the project in accordance with the data management plan. See Section I.B (Data Accessibility, Collection, and Transparency) for additional information.

Detailed technical descriptions of the specific TAs are provided in the sections that follow.

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B. Topic Areas

This FOA will support projects across three (3) TAs focused on advancing wave energy research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) to move the wave energy industry toward commercialization for distributed, community, and utility applications. The table below illustrates strategic differences between technology applications (e.g., use cases, power generation), so applicants can select the TA that most closely aligns with their technology and application.

Distributed (TA1) Community (TA2) Utility (TA3)

• Not grid connected

• When commercially deployed, would not be reconnected to shore (but may be connected to shore during testing)

• Associated with a blue economy end use at sea (offshore)

• Average power output likely milliwatts to 50 kW

• Technology readiness level (TRL) 4–8

• Prefer non-grid connected

• Associated with a coastal community or blue economy end user (usually connected to shore)

• Deployed in a nearshore environment (generally defined as state waters according to the Submerged Lands Act and 0–100-meter depth range)

• Range of 1–100 kW average power output

• TRL 4–8

• Connected to electrical grid or major industrial process

• Nearshore or offshore

• Average power output

(rated 500 kW or more aggregate, not necessarily per device)

• TRL 5–9

TA1 (Open Water Testing and System Validation for Distributed Applications) will provide up to $16.875 million for wave device development and open water testing for dispersed (e.g., remote/offshore) use cases and power-at-sea applications.

TA2 (Open Water Testing and System Validation for Community Applications) will provide up to $45 million for wave device development in direct support of coastal community needs, which may include power and/or desalinated water applications.

TA3 (Open Water Testing and System Validation for Utility Applications) will provide up to $50.625 million for wave device development in support of utility power needs, utilizing offshore grid-connected testing facilities such as PacWave.

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Information Applicable to all Topic Areas

Project Management Plan Requirements Awards selected under this FOA will be required to create and use a project management plan throughout the award period of performance. The following items are to be addressed in the project management plan at a minimum:

• Developers must implement project management software to manage workflow, costs, and schedule, and monitor safety and environmental impacts. Developer must demonstrate how they will utilize the software to WPTO during initial phase of Stage 1.

• Project management plan shall provide comprehensive schedule for the entire project (i.e., design, procurement, fabrication, testing and decommissioning).

• Schedule shall include predecessor/successor relationships for tasks.

• Developer shall capture lessons learned, including all aspects of safety

(personnel and environmental) throughout the project.

• If incidents occur during marine operations that lead to personnel injury, equipment damage, or loss/degradation of equipment function, developers shall submit incident summary reports to demonstrate health and safety risk mitigation.

Plans for Commercialization Awards selected under this FOA will develop commercialization plans during the period of performance. The following items are to be addressed in the commercialization plan at a minimum:

• Market transformation plan and description of how the technology will be ready for non-WPTO follow-on funding at the conclusion of the award.

• Market transformation planning should consider WEC development as well as end-use application, which should be informed by end-user engagement (as applicable).

• Evidence of product viability and market demand for long-term commercial success.

• Description of competition landscape and security of IP.

• Description of finance and expected revenue model.

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Data Collection, Accessibility, and Transparency The Oceans of Opportunity funding opportunity is an opportunity to rapidly advance technology and understanding of WECs. Knowledge and experience from projects will be captured and conveyed primarily through data collected. These data can be used to boost the industry’s maturation rate by, for example, validating design;

capturing and sharing lessons learned; assessing design and testing approaches;

developing and validating models; developing standards; establishing baseline timelines and protocols; measuring the impact of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility; quantifying costs; and understanding, characterizing, and solving environmental and ecological challenges. WPTO expects a high level of transparency for these projects to provide value back to the taxpayer; thus, each project must have robust data collection and dissemination with strong security, quality control, transparency, and accessibility. All project data, including but not limited to technical, economic, cost, schedule, site characterization, and environmental, will be made public subject to the following data release requirements and data protection limitations:

• All project data will be made available to WPTO as it is produced in or near real time and should be specified in the statement of project objectives (SOPO).

Special exceptions may be given when data cannot be accessed for self-contained WECs and instruments (e.g., data is only accessible by recovering the device).

• Protected data protection period is limited to one year from the end of the award period of performance.

Strong preference will be given to applicants where real-time data access and availability is implemented. Applicants are encouraged to address how data sharing is important to project success, end-user priorities, and the broad success of the wave energy industry. The use of the Modular Ocean Data Acquisition (MODAQ) system (or a proven third-party measurement system), the Marine and Hydrokinetic Toolkit (MHKiT), the Marine Energy Data Pipeline, and marine energy data standards is strongly encouraged.

A key endeavor of this funding opportunity is to improve the quality of R&D related to testing and validation of WECs in laboratory and open water environments.

Understanding and validating processes for technology evaluation, along with supporting DOE and WPTO in evaluating R&D opportunities and future testing and validation needs, will be critical to delivering a pipeline of future projects. It is vital for government services to adequately analyze and synthesize project data to help drive innovation and commercialization of technology.

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Projects will need to ensure technology system performance is comprehensively characterized during open water testing. Further, applicants will be required to make all necessary measurements to quantify device loads and performance and to validate design methods and numerical models that were used in system design. In their FOA applications, applicants should present a detailed testing, measurement, and data collection plan, including a description of the measurements, a schematic of the flow of data and quality control processes, a mapping of data to test objectives, and information on how these measurements will be used to further the technology development and measure interim progress. See Section IV.D.iii. for technical volume description, Section IV.D. xxi. for testing, measurement, and data collection plan description, and Appendix G for marine energy data repository plan description.

For all TAs, the following data types and sources for qualitative and measured and/or quantitative data should be discussed in the technical volume as well as the testing, measurement, and data collection plan. To ensure data quality and minimize time gaps in data streams, all channels should be automatically monitored to provide a basic level of data quality assurance and to verify that all instruments and the data acquisition system are functioning properly.

Qualitative data sources include but are not limited to:

• HS&E lessons learned.

• Permitting/regulatory lessons learned.

• Lessons learned concerning laboratory testing, open water testing, and marine operations.

• Internal and external presentations, reports, deliverables, and journal publications.

Measured/quantitative data sources include but are not limited to:

• Metadata that provides contextual information on the data so they can be fully understood and used by third parties (e.g., a data guide or annotation to provide context for full datasets).

• Ocean resource measurements, such as wave spectra or ocean current speed will be made public immediately.

• Environmental data collected.

• All test data collected through the application of the International

Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) marine energy technical specification series:

IEC Technical Specification 62600-3 for load measurements, IEC Technical Specification 62600-4 for technology qualification (or equivalent), and IEC https://epic.ee.doe.gov/EPICWeb/#/public/submission/opportunityDetail/6fc227b1148f596a1d411707ff80354a

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Technical Specification 62600-100 WEC power performance assessment (if applicable to the project).

• All data collected within specified evaluation areas as defined in the International Energy Agency-Ocean Energy Systems (IEA-OES) evaluation and guidance framework2 (e.g., survivability and/or reliability data).

• Techno-economic data (e.g., prototype costs, installation costs, transportation costs, maintenance costs).

• Other measurements, including but not limited to measurements of device motions, mechanical loads, electrical loads, mooring and anchoring loads, environmental measurements, system reliability, loads during installation, loads during operational sea states, and loads during extreme sea states.

The testing, measurement, and data collection plan should include the ability to adequately measure system-level performance such as extracted power, system conversion efficiency, reliability, etc. At the completion of the project, these data must be submitted to the appropriate Portal and Repository for Information on Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMRE) knowledge hub (see Appendix G) as agreed to by the applicant during the DOE award negotiations.

Prior to deployment, all instrument and data acquisition systems that will be used in offshore testing must undergo commissioning and a readiness review by a project due diligence team by completing the following:

• Bench testing of all equipment.

• End-to-end characterization test.

• Long-term, end-to-end system verification test of at least three months.

• Operation readiness review.

A validated rule from naval architecture states that what would take one hour (dollar) to install in a shore/land facility will take three hours (dollars) in a dry dock and at least eight hours (dollars) in the field. Therefore, every effort should be made to attach all sensors and instrumentation on land prior to moving to a dry dock. Not only is installation in the field expensive, but it can also be unsafe and time consuming. Often, time is limited, and installation can only occur during calm conditions.

Awardees will be encouraged to work with national laboratories and the technical assistance team on data processing, quality assurance, quality control, and archiving.

Awardees are also encouraged to work with national laboratories on leveraging community technical assistance as it relates to data and community energy

2 IEA-OES evaluation and guidance framework https://epic.ee.doe.gov/EPICWeb/#/public/submission/opportunityDetail/6fc227b1148f596a1d411707ff80354a

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planning. See the National Laboratory Technical Assistance section immediately below for further information.

National Laboratory Technical Assistance Collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) during the period of performance is encouraged. DOE has allocated initial funding outside of this FOA for NREL, PNNL, and Sandia to support FOA applicants.

Accordingly, applicants do not need to budget to pay for this support out of their project budget. However, continued funding for this support is subject to the availability of appropriations and is limited.

Applicants are not permitted to communicate with NREL, PNNL, and Sandia staff about laboratory support on this FOA before FOA awards are made. Instead, applicants should identify the areas in which they would benefit from NREL, PNNL, and/or Sandia support in their applications. The types of support that are available is described below. For awarded projects, the details and scope of the support will be finalized during award negotiations between the applicant, DOE, and the institution(s) providing support.

Questions regarding NREL, PNNL, or Sandia should be submitted to the FOA mailbox (MarineEnergyFOA@ee.doe.gov) or through the EERE Program Information Center (EPIC). It is important to note that the institutions that will provide the requested support may be different from what applicants request depending on capabilities and staff and facility availability. Applicants are strongly encouraged to leverage the capabilities of NREL, PNNL, and/or Sandia in the following areas:

• Measurement systems, instrumentation, data acquisition, and control systems:

NREL and Sandia can support deployments to ensure the instrumentation, data acquisition, and control systems will operate robustly and accurately during a deployment. This can include support on real-time control, data acquisition systems (e.g., MODAQ), instrumentation, mechanical load measurements (e.g., fiber optic strain, acceleration, pressure) and integration thereof.

• Data quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC), analysis conforming to IEC technical specifications, and data format standardization for PRIMRE knowledge hubs: Sandia, PNNL, and NREL can provide data QA/QC and metric analysis using MHKiT and custom code requests for data analysis, including analyses that follow the IEC technical specifications (e.g., -300, -301). PNNL, NREL, and Sandia can also process data to a standardized format using the Marine Energy Data Pipeline for upload to the appropriate PRIMRE knowledge hub.

• Accredited measurements: Applicants are encouraged to work with NREL to leverage its International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/IEC 17025 mailto:MarineEnergyFOA@ee.doe.gov https://epic.ee.doe.gov/EPICWeb/#/public/submission/opportunityDetail/6fc227b1148f596a1d411707ff80354a

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accreditation3 to perform accredited testing to IEC Technical Committee (TC) 114 standards. Accredited test results can be used for device certification and to demonstrate system viability to project financiers and insurance companies. The ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation confirms that NREL has the quality assurance procedures in place and the expertise to provide high-quality testing more broadly. This is essential for the industry to attract private funding in the future.

• Environmental monitoring: PNNL’s expertise in environmental monitoring around marine energy converters can be leveraged for technical assistance and monitoring support for measurements and assessment of several device interactions, including underwater noise to the IEC TC 114-40 technical specification, collision risk for marine fauna (including fish,…