Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. (OPT) has successfully completed a stage gate review with the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) related to its Power Take-off (PTO) technology that could be used with both small and large scale PowerBuoys.
Evaluation criteria for the stage gate review included PTO cost reduction, simplification of the manufacturing process, increased reliability, increased efficiency and overall reduction in PowerBuoy® Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE).
Ocean Power Technologies demonstrated considerable advancements in all of these criteria and presented what it believes to be a practical approach to aggregating the power output of optimized PowerBuoys.
George Kirby, President and Chief Executive Officer of OPT, commented: “We appreciate the continued investments by the U.S. Department of Energy in support of our efforts to advance the marine renewable energy industry’s knowledge of PTO efficiency and costs and look forward to advancing that knowledge in the next phase of our contract. We believe these findings define a viable path toward developing scalable PowerBuoy commercial products suitable for large and small scale power applications.”
The next phase of this project is included in OPT’s backlog as listed in its 10-Q for the period ended January 31, 2015.
Image: OPT