The U.S. Navy has modified its contract with the Applied Research Laboratory at University of Hawaiʻi (ARL/UH) to add a new core technical competency in renewable energy.
“ARL/UH is now the only Navy University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) in a strategic relationship with the U.S. government that is focused on delivering essential research and engineering in the field of renewable energy,” said ARL/UH Executive Director Mike Vitale.
“The Navy has led the armed services in recognizing the need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and develop greater use of renewables for both ships and shore stations,” Vitale said. “This modification will allow UH to continue its green energy work with the Navy and other federal government agencies, especially in smart grid technologies that allow for greater integration with renewable energy across the commercial grid.”
The University of Hawaiʻi was recently awarded more than $11.8 million in task orders to support grid modernization and ocean wave energy testing and support for the Navy—renewable-energy related work that qualified as mission-related research and development under the previous terms of the UARC contract. This work is primarily being performed by UH’s Hawaiʻi Natural Energy Institute.
The new contract modification officially recognizes UH’s comprehensive and sustained research in renewable energy and specifically allows for basic and applied research and engineering, systems engineering, modeling and simulation, and test and evaluation of technologies and techniques for the efficient and cost-effective development, use and integration of renewable energy resources to address National Security needs and issues.
Under the new terms of the agreement, UH is specifically approved to apply its expertise to biomass, bio-renewable resources, biotechnology, geothermal, wind, hydrogen, methane hydrates, ocean resources (marine energy), fuel cells, photovoltaics, transportation, energy storage and electrical grid systems projects for the U.S. Navy and other federal agencies, as well as the critical technologies and data associated with efforts executed under the UARC’s mission areas and supporting core competencies.
For the past seven years, the Navy contract with ARL/UH has only officially recognized research in four areas—astronomy, ocean sciences, remote sensing/electro-optics and engineering support to communications, sensors and information technology.
- UH News story: “$2.5 million Naval research contract examines power grid modernization,” September 15, 2014
- UH News story: “Navy expands investment at wave energy test site,” July 21, 2014
At the urging of the ARL/UH, the Navy conducted an assessment of UH’s energy research capabilities last year and recently concluded that its renewable energy capability was unique and of strategic value to the Navy. The new contract modification recognizes and codifies this capability into its own stand-alone core competency.
