Eaton to help develop utility-scale underwater energy generation for U.S. Navy
Eaton Corp., Cleveland, will help to develop an underwater, utility-scale energy generation system for the United States Navy. The system will enable the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) to utilize underwater turbine electricity production technology to provide a sustainable source of utility-scale power by capturing power from ocean currents. NAVFAC is the U.S. Navy's engineering command committed to the procurement and maintenance of the Navy’s land-based and port facilities.
Eaton is contracted to support the project’s land-based engineering, and will develop high-voltage electrical distribution equipment to efficiently convert and transmit safe, reliable alternative energy from the depths of the ocean to Navy shore facilities. The company’s participation in the project is in collaboration with privately held marine service providers Eclipse Group Inc., leading underwater construction efforts, and Triton Energy Systems, LLC, leading underwater generation engineering efforts. For the project, Eaton has been designated as an Eclipse qualified partner on a Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) SEAPORT-E five year contract with a possible capacity in excess of $19 billion.
“This collaboration will help meet the technical challenges associated with high-voltage generation in a saltwater environment, “ said Jim Dankowski, manager, Marketing and Business Development, Government Sales and Solutions, Eaton. “It will also promote the commercial viability of deep ocean current alternative energy, which has vast potential to become an established, highly-reliable and efficient source of energy.”
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Jim Lucy has been wandering through the electrical market for more than 30 years, most of the time as an editor for Electrical Wholesaling, Electrical Marketing newsletter and CEE News. During that time he and the editorial team for the publications have won numerous national awards for their coverage of the electrical business. He showed an early interest in electricity, when as a youth he had an idea for a hot dog cooker. Unfortunately, the first crude prototype malfunctioned and the arc nearly blew him out of his parents' basement. Before becoming an editor for Electrical Wholesaling magazine and Electrical Marketing, he earned a BA degree in journalism and a MA in communications from Glassboro State College, Glassboro, NJ., which is formerly best known as the site of the 1967 summit meeting between President Lyndon Johnson and Russian Premier Aleksei Nikolayevich Kosygin, and now best known as the New Jersey state college that changed its name in 1992 to Rowan University because of a generous $100 million donation by N.J. zillionaire industrialist Henry Rowan. Jim is a Brooklyn-born Jersey Guy happily transplanted in the fertile plains of Kansas for the past 20 years.