Agenda Session

Marine energy harvesting and the support of maritime operations depend on comprehensive, accurate, and openly accessible marine resource data—particularly information on sea states, ocean and tidal currents, and turbulence characteristics. An ongoing effort has been carried out by the Department of Energy’s national laboratories to generate high-quality marine energy resource datasets at both regional and hotspot scales, with a focus on ocean wave and tidal energy. In this presentation, we provide an overview of validated, multi-decade, high-resolution wave hindcasts that cover the entire U.S. Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), as well as three-dimensional tidal stream resource datasets for top national tidal hotspots. We will highlight spatial and seasonal variability in wave resource parameters, such as omnidirectional wave power density, significant wave height, and energy period in different coastal regions. Additionally, we will showcase modeled tidal stream resources and turbulence characteristics in prominent tidal hotspots, including Cook Inlet and the Salish Sea. These long-term and high-resolution datasets are valuable assets for supporting marine energy site selection, advancing marine sensor development, improving understanding of fluid-structure interactions, and accurately estimating hydrodynamic loads on offshore infrastructure.