The SusTech Program Committee is pleased to announce that a special session on Ocean Wave Energy has been added to the Friday program.

“Advancing Ocean Wave Energy through Research, Development and Testing Including Research on Materials and Technologies for Bio-Fouling Resistant Surfaces” will be co-presented by Annette von Jouanne and Alex Yokochi, of Oregon State University and the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC).

An extremely abundant and promising source of energy exists in the world’s oceans.  Ocean energy exists in the forms of wave, tidal, marine currents, thermal (temperature gradient) and salinity.  Among these forms, significant opportunities and benefits have been identified in the area of ocean wave energy extraction, i.e., harnessing the motion of the ocean waves, and converting that motion into electrical energy.  Ocean wave power offers several attractive qualities including high power density, low variability and excellent forecastability.  This presentation discusses the opportunities for ocean wave power to become a new, reliable and clean source of renewable energy and provides a summary of the wave energy research and developments at Oregon State University (OSU).  Also presented will be the activities of the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC), a Department of Energy sponsored partnership between OSU and the University of Washington (UW).  NNMREC performs fundamental technological, social, and environmental research, in addition to providing unique testing facilities including a wave energy test bed, 2D and 3D wave tanks, and an Ocean Sentinel mobile ocean test berth instrumentation buoy to facilitate ocean testing.  This presentation will include the ongoing research and testing with the Ocean Sentinel instrumentation buoy, including the current 2013 deployment, along with the testing of materials and technologies for bio-fouling resistant surfaces.

Annette von Jouanne, Ph.D., P.E., IEEE Fellow, has been a professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University since 1995.  She specializes in Energy Systems, including power electronics and power systems. With a passion for renewables, she initiated the Wave Energy program at OSU in 1998, developing it into a National multidisciplinary program, where she continues to be in leadership along with several excellent colleagues.  She is also Co-Directing the Wallace Energy Systems & Renewables Facility (WESRF), the highest power university-based Energy Systems Lab in the nation.  Dr. von Jouanne has received national recognition for her research and teaching, and she is a Registered Professional Engineer as well as a National Academy of Engineering “Celebrated Woman Engineer.”

Prof. Alexandre (Alex) Yokochi is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and the Director of the innovative Reaction Engineering for Materials and Sustainability laboratory (iREMS lab) in the School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University.  His research and teaching interests focus on the process and reaction engineering of novel processes as applied to sustainability related issues such as renewable energy production.  Dr. Yokochi’s work includes the development of advanced electrochemical approaches to energy conversion and storage, water treatment, and creation of novel materials with advanced properties through the development of nanocomposites.  His work is supported by various state and federal agencies including the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Oregon BEST, ONAMI, the USDOE and the NSF including a CAREER award, as well as industrial partners.