Learn How Robust Facilities Like NREL Could Shrink the Chasm From Data to Demonstration
The United States has enough marine energy pulsing in its waters to meet about 60% of the country’s electricity needs. Although all that energy cannot be captured, even a little could help energize offshore industries (like seafood farms), give coastal and island communities the power to weather outages or natural disasters, and help the country reach its energy goals.
However, the marine energy industry needs custom facilities and instruments to vet their novel tech. Researchers studying solar panels can prop a new prototype in a sunny field to see if it works, but tossing an untested marine energy device into the ocean is a bit like hopping into an experimental space shuttle and hitting the ignition.
“You could argue that, in some ways, space exploration is actually easier,” said Ben McGilton, an electrical engineer at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) who studies marine energy technologies. “In space, conditions like gravity, radiation, and vacuum are relatively predictable, whereas the oceans ever-changing waves, currents, and corrosive saltwater can create unforeseen challenges that are nearly impossible to simulate perfectly.”
Marine energy developers often start with a functional theoretical design. But even the best virtual designs cannot account for every invisible defect or ocean oddity. Developers need a lab-sized ocean to test those theories before they head to the big blue.
- Read more about those efforts from the National Renewable Energy Laboratories HERE (note this link opens in the Internet Archive–the complete story originally appeared HERE on NREL.gov).
From modelers to technicians to electrical and mechanical engineers, NRELs team of experts are perhaps one of the laboratory’s greatest assets. If a device malfunctions, they are there to troubleshoot, diagnose, repair, or even operate a crane.
Of course, NREL might have a suite of great equipment, but it does not have everything. The U.S. Navy has an indoor ocean (also known as the maneuvering and seakeeping basin, or MASK) that holds 12 million gallons of water (SWEL holds only 13,000). A new wave energy test site, called PacWave South, where researchers and developers can test full-scale devices in the open ocean, is under construction off the coast of Oregon.
Because the United States has so few of these facilities, collectively, they are critical for the marine energy industry to advance quickly. “Its all a big, interconnected ecosystem,” said Brian Polagye, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Washington
That ecosystem is growing thanks to renewed interest in this lesser-known renewable. And, in part because of facilities like NRELs, the field has made significant leaps in the last 10 years.
NREL is the only U.S. national laboratory solely dedicated to advancing renewable energy and energy efficiency. NREL’s water program leverages decades of experience in wind energy, marine energy and distributed and hybrid energy system research and development — along with a world-class laboratory validation infrastructure — to further U.S. Department of Energy goals to increase performance and reliability and lower the cost of marine energy and hydropower technologies.
PacWave South Construction Almost Complete
Affiliated with the Pacific Marine Energy Center, PacWave is an open ocean wave energy testing facility consisting of two sites, each located just a few miles from the deep-water port of Newport, Oregon on the ever-energetic Pacific Ocean. Both PacWave sites are highly accessible and served by a diverse maritime supply chain.
The construction phase of PacWave South is nearing an end as the project begins moving into its operational phase. Meanwhile, NREL researchers are helping wave energy developers prepare their devices for testing at PacWave South, including pre-PacWave lab support funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office. NREL researchers have also supported efforts to earn accreditation for the PacWave facility, enabling it to produce certified test data.
The build of the medium voltage Utility Connection and Monitoring Facility (UCMF) on NW Wenger Lane started in February 2023 and reached substantial completion in February 2025.
The installation of the PacWave terrestrial cables and subsea cables was completed in mid-October 2024. This was by far the largest and most complex part of the overall construction process and involved the installation of almost 50 miles of medium voltage cable using three vessels and a large remotely operated vehicle (ROV).
Construction of the underground components of PacWave was completed in mid-May 2022. Most of the activity was focused on the Driftwood Beach State Recreation Site area in Seal Rock, Oregon and involved horizontal directional drilling beneath the ocean shore to install cable conduits deep under the beach to the park, and from the park to the UCMF. Over 6 miles of conduit was installed.
When completed, PacWave will be a state-of-the-art, pre-permitted, accredited, grid-connected, wave energy test facility. It is being developed in partnership with the US Department of Energy, the State of Oregon, Oregon State University (OSU) and local stakeholders.
The open ocean test site consists of four berths, which occupy two square nautical miles of ocean with a cable route to shore of approximately 12 miles in length. The location for PacWave South was selected through a public outreach process, including significant input from local fishermen. The project continues to have wide community support.
Inasmuch as PacWave South is pre-permitted for the majority of wave energy device types, clients will not have to undertake a costly and time-consuming permitting process prior to testing at the site. This will allow for more rapid optimization of designs.
PacWave South site offers multiple advantages:
- All necessary infrastructure will be in place, including power and data cables and a shoreside grid connection facility (the Utility Connection and Monitoring Facility, or UCMF).
- The site is permitted for the testing of up to 20 wave energy converters in four berths, allowing different technologies to be tested at the same time, with a maximum power output of up to 20MW.
- Each berth will have a dedicated, 5MW-capable power and data cable connection to the UCMF.
- All required environmental monitoring is being conducted by OSU.
In March 2021, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued Oregon State University a license to build and operate the PacWave South test facility. This was the culmination of an unprecedented regulatory process that spanned nearly 10 years. Construction of PacWave South should be completed by early 2025.
Grid-connected testing is now expected to start in the spring/summer of 2026.
