Ocean Power Technologies, Navy sign $3M deal

Pennington, N.J.-based Ocean Power Technologies (Nasdaq: OPTT) said it signed a $3 million contract with the U.S. Navy to power underwater systems with the company's device that converts kinetic energy from oceanic waves into electricity.

Ocean Power Technologies plans to test an advanced version of its proprietary PowerBuoy technology to power the Navy's Deep Water Active Detection Systems (DWADS) program, which uses sophisticated oceanic data-gathering and communications systems to track vessels.

In June 2007, Ocean Power Technologies announced a $1.7 million contract with the Navy for ocean-data gathering (see U.S. Navy considering OPT to power sensor network). The deal was the company's first since it went public in April 2007 (see Ocean Power Technologies prices U.S. IPO).

The project begins immediately and should be completed in about 18 months, the company said.

Ocean Power Technologies said it now has an approximate $8.7 million backlog of orders for its buoys. Ocean Power signed a $2 million contract with the U.S. Department of Energy to deploy a PowerBuoy off the Oregon coast in the
second half of 2009.

In September, Ocean Power Technologies deployed its first PowerBuoy wave energy unit to Spanish utility Iberdrola. The buoy was planned to be the first in a string of 10 PowerBuoys planned for the 1.39-megawatt project located 3 miles off the coast of Santoña, Spain (see Ocean Power Technologies deploys Spanish wave unit).

In May, the company signed a joint development agreement to build a 10-MW wave power station off the coast of Western Australia, with a potential expansion to 100 MW (see Ocean Power Tech to build wave station in Australia).

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