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A new $3.6 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant will be awarded over five years to researchers from the University of Michigan, East Carolina University, UNC-Chapel Hill and Virginia Tech, meaning “increased levels of energy resilience could be just around the corner for coastal communities in North Carolina, Michigan and Alaska,” noted a news release from Coastal Studies Institute. The town of Nags Head has been chosen as a focal community in North Carolina.

“Remote and island communities like the Outer Banks do not always have access to resilient energy sources during severe weather or other coastal hazards that jeopardize traditional grid power,” stated the release. “When disaster strikes, it may be quite some time before such communities have renewed access to clean drinking water or electricity, and this lag time can hamper recovery efforts.”

The new project launched Sept. 27 with the main objective of providing a comprehensive, transdisciplinary approach to the development and deployment of marine renewable energy technologies that could be tailored to individual communities.

The first two years of the five-year project will be spent getting to know the stakeholders of the identified communities, assessing their specific energy-related needs and identifying potential wave energy technologies that could meet those needs. During the remaining years of the project, the focus will shift to technology design evaluations, wave tank testing and testing deployment of devices in coastal waters. Technology that uses waves as a renewable energy source will be a focal point of community discussions and suggested solutions. Technical leads will consider the needs of each community as they create and then test marine renewable energy devices that are specifically suited for each of the three study areas.

Among those to receive funding are ECU’s Dr. Eric Wade, assistant professor in the Department of Coastal Studies, and UNC’s Lindsay Dubbs, both of whom are based at the Coastal Studies Institute on ECU’s Outer Banks Campus. Dubbs’ previous and ongoing work to collect environmental assessment data off the Outer Banks coast will be leveraged during the technology development phase of the project, especially in North Carolina. Her work, largely funded by the North Carolina Renewable Ocean Energy Program led by CSI, has been focused on the potential impacts of marine energy development on nearshore and offshore ecosystems.

Meanwhile, Wade will lead community engagement efforts including workshops, interviews and surveys to better understand the needs of each unique community, as well as community members’ perceptions of marine renewable energy devices. One desired result of their research, in combination with the research of others leading the study, is to create a set of socio-environmental metrics to guide the identification of marine energy technologies that account for community needs and environmental dynamics.

“This project can be transformative for powering remote coastal communities by leveraging wave energy technologies,” said Wade. “Indeed, this project centers communities as a key partner by understanding their needs and designing technologies that best meet them. Through this community-centered approach, we hope to contribute to the need for energy equality and sustainability for coastal remote communities. Further, this project leverages ECU and CSI’s ongoing partnership with coastal communities, seeing them not only as research recipients but as active participants throughout the project.”

In addition to building upon pre-established relationships with local communities in North Carolina, this project will also complement ongoing research conducted by the NC Renewable Ocean Energy Program (NCROEP), led by CSI, and the Atlantic Marine Energy Center (AMEC), of which CSI is a founding member. Once the project has reached the deployment phase, the device built based on the identified needs of Nags Head will be tested at the Jennette’s Pier Wave Energy Test Center, managed by NCROEP and Jennette’s Pier.

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