SHARKS Highlights

Alaska is an energy powerhouse—home to a wide variety of inspiring energy innovations. As Senator Lisa Murkowski said at the 2023 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, Alaska is the perfect testing ground for any energy technology solution under the sun. Simply put, Alaska is the perfect place for innovation.

On April 11, 2023, ARPA-E awardee Emrgy raised $18.4M for their proprietary hydrokinetic turbine (HKT) in a Series A funding round led by Oval Park Capital, including key investors Fifth Wall, Blitzscaling Ventures, Overlay Capital, and Veriten. Emrgy will use this funding to open their turbine assembly facility in Aurora, Colorado with an estimated production capacity of 5 megawatts per month, deploy their distributed hydropower plants, and hire staff for their development, operations, and engineering teams.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy today announced $35 million in funding for 11 projects as part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s (ARPA-E) Submarine Hydrokinetic And Riverine Kilo-megawatt Systems (SHARKS) program. SHARKS teams will develop new economically competitive Hydrokinetic Turbines (HKT) designs for tidal and riverine currents.

For an agency mandated to look to the future – often far into the future – please allow a quick glance into this year so far.  Since the beginning of our fiscal year the agency which you know so well has continued to do what it does in extraordinary fashion – raise the bar through the efforts of all.  In this time, we have launched new programs, made changes in our recruiting and contracting approaches, had a number of successes in follow-on-funding and employed new approach to how we help tech move to market. 

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy announced up to $38 million in funding for a new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program, Submarine Hydrokinetic And Riverine Kilo-megawatt Systems (SHARKS). The program seeks to design economically attractive Hydrokinetic Turbines (HKT) for tidal and riverine currents.