Navy to use OPT's buoys in Deep Water
New Jersey-based bouy specialist makes stand-alone buoys which harness wave power to generate energy; the Navy wants to use them for its ocean-based, far-flung vessel tracking project
Pennington, New Jersey-based Ocean Power Technologies (company’s motto: “Making Waves in Power”) has been awarded a $1.7 million contract from the U.S. Navy to provide its PowerBuoy technology to a naval program for ocean data gathering. The Navy’s Deep Water Acoustic Detection System (DWADS) program relies on wide-area unattended sensor networks and it is designed to use data gathering and communications systems for vessel tracking for homeland security.
The contract calls for the Navy to ocean-test OPT’s autonomous PowerBuoy as the power source for the DWADS program. In addition, OPT will support the Navy’s ocean-testing in the areas of mooring design, at-sea operations and deployment. OPT’s will begin work on the contract this month, and is expected to continue over an eighteen-month period.
Ocean Power Technologies made a name for itself as a developer of propietary technology systems which generate electricity by harnessing the energy of ocean waves. The Company’s PowerBuoy system is a modular, ocean-going buoys: The waves move the buoy-like structure hither and yon, in the process creating mechanical energy that the company’s proprietary technologies convert into electricity.
