Persistent Environmental Monitoring Near an Operational Wave Energy Converter

In the first demonstration of the technology, the WEC supplied all the power needed by the multi-sensor Adapatable Monitoring Package.

For over 6 months, ocean environment observations were captured by the sensor package powered only by the ocean waves at the U.S. Navy Wave Energy Test Site off Oahu, HI.

Here, offshore Hawaii, the Navy is interested to understand the risk of interactions between wave energy conversion devices and marine animals, especially humpback whales. During its deployment the acoustic, sonar, photo, and video sensors detected, characterized, and recorded marine animals (no whales) relying only on the wave power captured by and converted to electricity by the Fred. Olsen BOLT Lifesaver buoy.

APL-UW,Ocean Physics and Engineering,