Deployed under the US Navy’s Littoral Expeditionary Autonomous PowerBuoy (LEAP) program, the PowerBuoy was in the direct path of Hurricane Irene, which hit the New Jersey coastline on 27 August 2011. The PowerBuoy emerged from the two-day storm undamaged and fully operational, with all the buoy’s systems having withstood wave heights of up to 15m. During the storm, the PowerBuoy continued to supply consistent power to its communications and radar payload, and dissipate the high amounts of surplus energy it produced. In addition, nearly constant communication was maintained with the device throughout the storm, allowing continuous on-land monitoring of the buoy’s status and performance. The PowerBuoy operated on a fully autonomous basis, implementing the requisite power management and system protection functions without the need for any human intervention.
The PowerBuoy, which was deployed on 11 August, continues to undergo sea trials approximately 20 miles off the coast of New Jersey under a US Navy program for coastal security and maritime surveillance. The LEAP PowerBuoy structure, incorporating a unique power take-off and on-board energy storage system, is significantly smaller and more compact than the Company’s standard utility PowerBuoy. It is designed to provide persistent, off-grid, clean energy in remote ocean locations for a wide variety of maritime security and monitoring applications.
