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Last week nearly a dozen PMEC and PacWave researchers attended the 2025 European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference (EWTEC) in Madeira, Portugal from September 7 to 11th. Members engaged in dozens of knowledge sharing conversations, developed international relationships, explored career opportunities and networked. Altogether, PMEC members contributed 9 papers on research by 41 co-authors.

L to R: Samatha Quinn (TEAMER/POET), Sarah Palmer (OSU), Chris Bassett (UW), Brian Polagye (UW), Ari Athair (UW), Bret Bosma (OSU), Bryson Robertson (OSU), Abilyn McConnell (OSU), Courtney Beringer (OSU), Raza Ali (OSU).

The papers presented by PMEC researchers:

"Data Driven Modeling of nonlinear events form an oscillating surge WEC using Sparse ID of nonlinear dynamics," Brittany Lydon (UW), Steve Brunton, Ama Hartman, Greg Talpey, Corey Crisp, Gemma Calandra, Charles Candon, Rebecca Fao, Brian Polagye.

"Detailed uncertainty analysis of a point absorber WEC lab test in irregular waves," Courtney Beringer (OSU), Bret Bosma, Bryson Robertson.

"Evaluating the applicability of linear hydrodynamics across float geometries for heaving point absorbers," Sarah Palmer (UW), Sadie Kass, Curtis Rusch, Brittany Lydon, Brian Polagye.

"Experimental Analysis of the effect of surge-pitch coupling on the dynamics and power production of a submerged WEC," Raza Ali (OSU), Aeron Roach, Bret Bosma, Bryson Robertson.

"Experimental variation of a real-time hybrid mooring system for wave energy systems using a linear test bed," Abilyn McConnell (OSU), Bryson Robertson, Bret Bosma.

"Observations of fish, birds, and harbor seals around an operating cross-flow turbine," Christopher Bassett (UW), Emma Cotter
"Optimizing the interplay between the chord to radius ratio, camber, and pitch of cross-flow turbine blades," Ari Athair (UW), Aidan Hunt, Han-Wen Chi, Owen Williams.

“System Identification Techniques Applied to a Laboratory Scale WEC Point Absorber,” Bret Bosma (OSU), Courtney Beringer, Ryan Coe, Giorgio Baccelli, Daniel Gaebele, Dominic Forbush, Bryson Robertson.

"Wave amplification using a flexible floating water bladder for WEC enhanced performance," Pedro Lomonaco Tonda (OSU), Mike Plackett, Alex Sutherland, Solomon Yim.

In additional to the papers presented, several members reported back presentations that stood out to them:

The M4 Wave Energy Demonstration Project from the University of Western Australia…“ A super cool deployment!” - Bryson Robertson

Corpower Ocean’s Full Scale Wave Energy Converter Deployment…“It's one thing to know the theory of how wave energy converters operate, it's another thing entirely to see a full-scale system using a variable internal spring to resonate and cause the float motion to exceed the surrounding wave heights.” - Brian Polagye

The CoTide Project… “This project is knitting together a number of similar themes to what we did on our recently concluded ARPA-E SHARKS project. It's interesting to see another group approaching the control co-design problem for turbine arrays from a different angle.” - Brian Polagye

University of New Hampshire’s Wave Powered Water Pump…“I had a really great conversation with Chelsea Kimball from University of New Hampshire about her work using wave energy technology to upwell cooler water for aquaculture.” - Abilyne McConnell

These and all conference proceedings are available at:

https://submissions.ewtec.org/proc-ewtec/issue/view/16th-ewtec-2025

Brian Polagye and Abigyn McConnell also share some presentation tips and and lessons learned, for navigating future conferences:

“Don’t assume that you'll have access to your speaker notes in PowerPoint or even be able to see your slides while facing the audience (we were at empty podiums).”

“Be prepared for all of your videos to not work (particularly if you give a talk on the first day before AV issues have been ironed out).”
“Be prepared for your talk time to be unexpectedly expanded or shortened (guidance until the conference was 12 minutes + questions, which expanded to 15 minutes at the end of the opening session).”
“Talk to as many people as you can and don't be nervous about presenting because the worst case scenario is that you get really good feedback on your work!”

EWTEC 2027 will be in Athens, Greece.