Signature Projects are intended to bring focus to a selection of U.S. Department of Energy's Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) projects. By designating a Signature Project, the project reports, datasets, and associated papers can be easily discoverable. By bringing together all aspects of a project, whether a completed legacy project or an ongoing investigation, the MRE community can be informed of what investigations have been undertaken, which have succeeded, what tools are available, and where gaps in information persist.

UMERC

Project Purpose

The University Marine Energy Research Community (UMERC) aims to increase transparency and awareness of marine energy research by evaluating current research and recommending future research activities. UMERC also aims to improve research coordination and collaboration by strengthening university, laboratory, and industry ties and growing the U.S. university marine energy research community.

Project Description

The UMERC program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and coordinated by the Pacific Ocean Energy Trust, is an inclusive network of university, laboratory, and industry research whose aim is to reduce duplication, increase knowledge sharing, and ensure that applied and foundational research aligns with the needs of the marine energy industry. Historically, marine energy research has taken place through different research entities and there has been no organization or network compiling the research or acting as a platform for sharing research. UMERC aims to be that platform.

The UMERC project partners include University of Washington, University of Edinburgh, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. A Board of Directors has also been established for UMERC with seats rotating on an annual and bi-annual basis, depending on the seat.

Project Methods

The UMERC team will work with the Community members and the UMERC Board of Directors to create a series of activities including workshops, seminars, an annual survey, and an annual summit.

Registration and more information on all the UMERC activities will be made available on the UMERC Website.

This table lists documents associated with the UMERC project, including reports written by the project team and/or papers that have used the project outputs or are closely associated with them. To find additional project outputs, including related papers, datasets, and codes, explore the UMERC page on PRIMRE.

Associated Marine Energy Engineering Documents

Title	Author	Date Sort ascending	Type of Content
1st Annual UMERC Summit Report	University Marine Energy Research Community (UMERC), Pacific Ocean Energy Trust (POET)	July 2023	Report
Analyzing the U.S. Marine Energy Technological Innovation System	Hirsch, S.	February 2023	Report
INORE Panel: Marine Renewable Energy Career Development & Current Barriers	Mi, J.	September 2022	Presentation
UMERC Research Landscape Workshops Report	Hirsch, S., Quinn, S.	January 2022	Workshop Article