Company type | Public |
---|---|
AMEX: OPTT | |
Industry | Renewable Energy, Wave Power, Sustainable Energy |
Founded | Princeton, New Jersey, United States (1984) |
Founder | George W. Taylor Joseph R. Burns |
Headquarters | Monroe, New Jersey, United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Terence J. Cryan (chairman) George H. Kirby (President and CEO) |
Website | [1] (1999 established) |
Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) is a U.S. publicly owned renewable energy company, providing electric power and communications solutions, services and related for remote offshore applications. The company's PowerBuoy wave energy conversion technology is theoretically scalable to hundreds of megawatts and the generated energy from wave power can be supplied to the grid via submarine cables. Several projects were undertaken around the world, but the economic viability of the theoretical concept has been problematic.
Ocean Power was involved in several large PowerBuoy projects, including a very large Australian project with Lockheed Martin from 2012–2014, when they determined that "the project wasn’t 'commercially viable,' and [the company] changed its strategy. It has since commercialized the technology by providing power and communications to remote sites such as offshore oil fields."[1]
Ocean Power Technologies Australasia Pty Ltd, OPTA is an Australian-owned subsidiary of Ocean Power Technologies Inc (OPT), previously engaged in wave power projects in Australia. Ocean Power Technologies Limited is the UK-based wholly owned subsidiary.[not verified in body]
The company's primary product is the PowerBuoy wave generation system.[21] It uses a "smart," oceangoing buoy to capture and convert wave energy into low-cost, clean electricity.
The company's secondary product, the Hybrid PowerBuoy, generates energy independent of wave motion, instead relying on a solar panel array for charging the onboard lithium iron phosphate batteries. Backup power is provided by a liquid propane 1 kW engine.[22]
Unlike the energy-generating PowerBuoy and hybrid variant, the Subsea Battery is a fully submersed energy-storage vessel housing lithium-iron phosphate batteries for powering subsea payloads. The batteries supply 132 kWh (nominal capacity) with up to 15 kW peak power delivery.[23]
The USP[24] is an electrical power aggregator from up to ten offshore power generation devices, be they wind, wave power or other, into one common interconnection point for transmission to the onshore power grid. The USP can likewise be configured to supply onshore power to offshore devices.