The Triton Initiative mission is to comprehensively assess the potential environmental effects of marine energy, reduce uncertainties regarding regulatory concerns, and facilitate confident decision-making based on empirical observations and data driven science that supports the responsible and sustainable deployment of marine energy systems.
Over the next few years, the Triton team will continue supporting its mission with its many projects, including new efforts!
Triton will continue its work understanding and mitigating collision risk through the Probability of Encounter Model and Integrated Collision Detection and Mitigation Projects. Triton will also begin new research in the collision risk space, including imaging sonar tests with a tank-scale model turbine and animal models in controlled tanks experiments. Additionally, the team will annotate datasets from different marine monitoring technologies to support the development of machine learning algorithms.
Lastly, Triton’s Communications team works to inform and engage industry stakeholders, regulators, researchers, and the public around environmental monitoring for marine energy. The team plans to conduct an end-user engagement study to better understand how regulators and other marine energy decision-makers access and use environmental monitoring information. This study aims to improve the transfer of information from Triton research projects to audiences who can use the information to help remove barriers to permitting and to support the advancement of the marine energy industry.
Stay tuned to learn more!
Story: Why You Might Love a Career in Marine Energy
Molly Grear joined four other marine energy career panelists to share how she found marine energy and why she loves her job. (Photo from Mark Stone | University of Washington.)
Last winter, PNNL, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and Sandia National Laboratories co-hosted a Marine Energy Career Panel. This panel featured a diversity of scientists, engineers, and technicians in marine energy from the national laboratories, including Triton ocean engineer Molly Grear. NREL published some highlights from the webinar, including:
Careers in marine energy are varied; whether working in the field, developing models, conducting community-engaged research, or designing technologies for deployment, often every day looks different when working in marine energy.
As a new industry, marine energy brings a lot of opportunities for creativity!
Quantitative ecologist Kate Buenau, gave a talk about Triton’s Probability of Encounter Model project at the 2024 American Fisheries Society Meeting (AFS) in Honolulu, Hawaii, in September. The talk, titled “Modeling Salmon Smolt Turbine Encounter Risk in the Kvichak River, Igiugig, Alaska” was part of a symposium about Partnering for Innovation and Fish Protection in the Clean Energy Transition. This session included a series of presentations on various efforts to understand renewable energy system impacts on aquatic ecosystems. Kate shared the model’s capabilities and the project’s collaboration with local communities, developers, and academic partners.
Triton is designed to support the development and testing of more precise and cost-effective environmental monitoring technologies for marine energy. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory leads Triton on behalf of the Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office.
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