PMEC is structured to close key gaps in understanding through the support of baseline studies, on-going monitoring, and setting the technical, ecological, and human dimensions standards for marine energy projects.
Understanding marine energy resources is fundamental to their utilization. PMEC research has expanded our understanding of waves and currents by developing and utilizing resource characterization methods that inform the long term potential for power production and the extremes that impose the highest structural loads on conversion technologies.
Technical and environmental research and development are not enough to responsibly advance marine energy. PMEC research seeks to understand and quantify the many human dimensions of marine energy. Research in the fields of social science and human centered design including co-design, community perspectives, and energy policy.
Wave energy conversion is still nascent and a challenging systems engineering problem that encompasses hydromechanics, control, and advanced mathematics. Research at PMEC seeks to develop more cost-effective approaches to harnessing this resource through simulation, laboratory experiments, and field trials.
The technology to convert tidal, river, and ocean currents to electricity has heavily leveraged advances in wind energy, but significant challenges remain. PMEC research has led to breakthroughs in the performance of individual turbines and arrays.
Anyone who has spent time at sea understands the difficulty of working in the marine environment. PMEC researchers are working to develop new marine energy use cases and approaches to installation, operations, and maintenance that leverage advances in machine learning, analytics, robotics, autonomy and other emerging technologies.
 PMEC researchers are developing leading-edge methods and technologies that can collect data to reduce uncertainty about the environmental effects of marine energy technologies. These technologies and methods can help to rapidly and cost-effectively identify risks that require mitigation and those that do not, assisting regulators in making evidence-based decisions regarding the potential impacts of marine energy projects.
Grid integration of marine renewable energy presents significant challenges that span multiple scales and disciplines. PMEC capability and research addresses these challenges comprehensively, from power converter design and operation at the device level to high-power grid-scale integration studies. This work encompasses energy storage considerations, performance modeling of individual generation devices, optimal control strategies, array modeling, microgrid development, and analysis of grid stability and transients. We have the capability to work across a wide range of power levels, from watts to hundreds of kilowatts, and we complement our experimental efforts with extensive simulation studies.
