The best-in-class cable deployment control software, MakaiLay^TM, was commissioned on the Cable Laying Vessel (CLV) Normand Clipper in July 2020 by Global Offshore. Global Marine Group is a leading provider of subsea cable installation, maintenance and burial services world-wide for both telecom and power cables through its brands Global Marine and Global Offshore.

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Makai has recently been awarded a Phase II contract to complete a feasibility study and conceptual design in support of the Puerto Rico Ocean Technology Industrial Park (PROTech) spearheaded by the Puerto Rico Economic Development & Commerce Department (DDEC). The project’s goal is to build an industrial park, where businesses take advantage of the cold and nutrient rich deep seawater required for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) and Seawater Air Conditioning (SWAC).

Makai’s role in this project is to conduct a feasibility study and develop the conceptual design for the seawater supply, OTEC, and SWAC systems. Makai’s feasibility study will use Makai’s SWAC and OTEC models to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of the systems for the specified location.

Technologies such as OTEC and SWAC have great potential to boost Puerto Rico’s energy independence.

Makai has recently been awarded the Manufacturing Assistance Grant from the State of Hawaii, Hawaii Technology Development Corporation (HTDC) to advance its heat exchanger technology developed through grants from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in partnership with University of Hawaii’s Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (UH-HNEI). The funding will support additional testing needed to bring the technology to the commercial market.

Makai is currently working on building a commercial prototype of its TFHX™ heat exchanger to be installed in an algae facility at the Hawaii Ocean Science & Technology (HOST) Park by NELHA and has been awarded an SBIR Phase I for the US Army. The installation in a commercial facility will allow Makai to validate the long term reliability of the TFHX™.

Makai has been awarded several Phase I STTR and SBIR contracts. The work includes developing methods of capturing methane at the seafloor, and converting it to usable electricity. Makai has partnered with the University of Hawaii’s Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) on this project. HNEI’s experience in methane reforming and fuel cell technologies, will be leveraged through this Phase I to develop the basic system concepts and feasibility to produce electricity. This project will allow Makai to further expand our renewable ocean energy and subsea infrastructure portfolios.

Makai has also been awarded a Navy Phase I SBIR contract to develop methods of mooring buoys with fiber optic cables and a Navy Phase I SBIR for alternative towed array straightening systems. Makai’s experience modeling subsea cables will be leveraged to develop a robust solution for these systems.

Makai was recently awarded an Army Phase I SBIR for the development of ultra-compact heat exchangers for air-liquid coolant applications.

Makai recently completed Phase I of the DoE ARPA-E MARINER program, with the goal of developing technologies for large scale macroalgae (seaweed) cultivation within the US EEZ. Makai’s work included prototype design and testing of seedline installation and small nutrient upwelling systems, and the physical-environmental modeling of farm performance under realistic ocean conditions.

In a joint effort with Facebook’s submarine cable group, Makai identified two areas where new automated tools can assist human operators on some of the repetitive tasks and can significantly improve the efficiency and reliability of these steps. First is an “Automatic Rule Checker” for assisting the planners during the route engineering process and second is an “Auto-Position Tool” for assisting the installers during the cable installation.

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Makai was awarded a $245 million ceiling IDIQ contract by the Navy for ocean engineering services for a period of 5 years. Makai will support the Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center (NAVFAC EXWC), in Port Hueneme, California under this award. Tasks will leverage Makai’s diverse project experience to provide worldwide design and construction of ocean cable systems, ocean work systems (i.e., shipboard load handling systems and undersea work systems), waterfront facilities, offshore structures, moorings, and ocean construction equipment. Makai is excited to work with our government customers and subcontractors to provide services at Makai’s high standard of quality under this award.

Makai has been awarded a Phase I SBIR contract to develop Ultra-Compact Heat Exchangers for the U.S. Air Force. The proposed system is based on the thin walled titanium heat exchangers originally developed for ocean energy applications in our Heat Exchanger Manufacturing and R&D Facility in Kailua-Kona, that was constructed in late 2016. The heat exchanger utilizes innovative manufacturing techniques that allow the system to conform to complex geometries, while providing increased efficiency. Testing shows a dramatic improvement in volumetric performance compared to industry standard heat exchanger technology. This Air Force SBIR award will allow Makai and its engineers to adapt our technology and prove its application in domains other than the one we are well known for; the ocean. For more information on our heat exchanger technology, see the August 2017 issue of our newsletter.

Makai was awarded three more Navy Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) contracts. The first contract is for straightening of vertical towed arrays while it is being towed, as the straightness of the array affects the accuracy of the sensors. The design will have to take into account the ocean’s currents and the towing vessel’s speed and path. The goal is to design a system that automatically accounts for these changing variables and straightens the vertical array along its entire length. The system will be designed to integrate with existing vertical array systems. Makai’s experience modeling underwater cables and how they interact with the ocean environment positions our engineers well to tackle this project and design a viable solution.

The second contract awarded to Makai is to develop a distributed temperature sensing tow cable system, to accurately measure the temperature in the water column along the length of a towed cable. Makai’s strong experience understanding the dynamics of towed cables and state-of-the-art fiber optic interrogation methods provides us with the foundation to develop a ruggedized solution to this problem that’s extensible to a variety of towed systems and oceanographic applications. Finally, we have been selected for an SBIR Phase II for further development of our horizontal towed array straightening system.

Seawater air conditioning, or SWAC, remains a hot topic in many Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Caribbean islands that have access to deep cold seawater. SWAC provides a low energy option for cooling buildings to help their occupants escape the hot climate. Makai recently concluded a SWAC feasibility study and conceptual design for Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. Makai’s conceptual design of the SWAC system would serve a resort area and downtown areas of Puerto Plata.

This award follows an earlier development bank funded feasibility study that used Makai’s SWAC computer model to show that Puerto Plata was a technically and economically promising location for a SWAC system.

For places like Caribbean islands that have large cooling loads with access to cold deep sea or lake water, SWAC systems have been proven to yield attractive economic returns and provide eco-friendly air conditioning.

Exploring how to cultivate and harvest macroalgae (i.e., seaweed) for fuel using low-cost, low-energy technologies will be the central task in two Makai contracts (modeling as a prime and engineering design as a sub) that were recently kicked off under the Department of Energy, ARPA-E’s MARINER Program. Makai is tasked to design a system that will bring nutrient rich deep seawater up to fertilize a macroalgae farm on the ocean’s surface. Makai is teamed up with Kampachi Farms, LLC to produce a system that grows, harvests, and processes macroalgae, independently from any electrical grid or fossil fuels. Complex physical, nutrient, and biological modeling tools are being developed using Makai’s EFDC software. The goal is to have all of the following systems powered by alternative energies as to reduce the cost to produce the fuel and create a sustainable system.

• Deep Seawater Upwelling System
• Algae Growing Substrate
• Algae Seeder & Harvester
• Algae Harvest Transportation to Shore

This project looks 50 years into the future with the hope of creating game-changing and sustainable technologies for alternative fuel source. Coastal macroalgae cultivation is a billion dollar industry in the Asian and European markets, and Makai is proud to be part of a team exploring options that could accelerate the world’s transition away from fossil fuels.

Makai recently won a grant from the State of Hawaii, Hawaii Technology Development Corporation (HTDC) to advance the capabilities of our patented autonomous underwater vehicle. This funding will support deep water at-sea testing of the fully assembled prototype. The underwater vehicle will bury, install, and connect power and data cables underwater without a human in the loop, which will mark the first time this has ever been done, to our knowledge.

New software which can communicate and automatically control the cable engine and the DP system of cable laying vessels is being developed on the best-in-class cable deployment control software MakaiLay. This software takes advantage of the new generation of installation hardware equipped with digital I/O mechanisms that make easier to use their measurements in real-time and to automatically control their operation. Smart algorithms are used in Makai’s Auto-Slack and Auto-NAV software to generate the next optimal sequence of instructions that the cable engine and the vessel DP should follow to accurately install the submarine cable with the target bottom tension/slack and along the desired route.

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A best-in-class cable deployment control software MakaiLay was commissioned on the cable laying vessel Giulio Verne in November 2017 by the Prysmian Group, the world leader in the energy and telecom cables and systems industry. Giulio Verne is a DP2 cable laying vessel built to tackle the most challenging worldwide subsea operations and interconnections. It is expected that MakaiLay with its power-cable-specific module will be used by Giulio Verne when it starts working on the North Sea Link installation. North Sea Link is a subsea power cable interconnector between Norway and UK and will be the longest subsea interconnector in the world upon completion in 2021.

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A best-in-class cable deployment control software was used to enhance a successful at-sea trial deployment of ocean bottom nodes in the Norwegian North Sea from August 17th to 23rd. The trial was conducted by inApril AS, using their node-based seabed acquisition system called Venator and supported by Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc. with their world’s #1 subsea cable deployment software, MakaiLay™ – Seismic module.

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Makai was featured in an article by Revolve Media discussing the potential for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion and Sea Water Air Conditioning in the Caribbean.

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Energy Source and Distribution Magazine featured Makai’s OTEC Power Plant at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) in Kailua, Kona while discussing exciting OTEC projects worldwide.

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Makai’s Jose Andres spoke with Revolve about seawater air conditioning or SWAC and its ability to contribute to the Caribbean’s energy transition to renewable, sustainable and local sources. This emerging technology has the potential to reduce the energy required for cooling in large buildings and resorts by up to 90%, resulting in millions of dollars in annual cost savings for some customers. Interested parties can contact Makai at SWAC@makai.com to request a copy of a pre-feasibility report on SWAC for Caribbean locations.

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The Lake Source Cooling project continues to provide an amazingly simple and cost effective approach to cool Cornell University. Cornell has released a new article on the project that includes latest energy savings and Cayuga Lake Modeling Project data. Makai Ocean Engineering designed the offshore intake pipelines that serve this project, and most recently assisted with the project’s first pipe cleaning and pigging in 2015, after about 15 years of operation. For more information on lake and seawater intake and cooling systems, contact SWAC@makai.com

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In the last few months, the submarine cable industry’s #1 cable installation software, MakaiLay, has been commissioned on four cable laying vessels around the world. Companies commissioning the software include:

• KT Submarine (KTS, Korea) for two of their cable laying vessels Segero and the Responder,
• NTT World Engineering Marine Corporation’s (NTTWEM, Japan) for their newly constructed cable laying vessel Kizuna, and
• PT. Bina Nusantara Perkasa’s (BNP, Indonesia) commissioned and leased MakaiLay on their cable ship the Nusantara Explorer

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Makai is excited to receive a prestigious U.S. national honor for excellence in technology research and development, the Tibbetts Award!

Each year the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) chooses winners of the prestigious Tibbetts Award, recognizing the very best in class of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I and II program participants. Awardees are evaluated on technological innovations that:

• Create jobs and have a visible economic impact,
• Serve federal R&D needs,
• Encourage diverse participation, and
• Increase commercialization of federal R&D.

Makai would like to offer a warm MAHALO to our loyal base of federal customers who have repeatedly put their faith in us to execute on their most difficult R&D projects. This honor would not have been possible without you.

Makai would also like to thank the State of Hawaii, DBEDT, and HTDC for their continued support of Hawaii’s leading SBIR companies. See the State of Hawaii press release for more.

Makai is proud to announce the successful installation and commissioning of a Makai-designed cooling water intake system for a large power plant in Upstate New York. Since final commissioning in January 2017, the system is now fully operational and supplying water to the power plant!

Some factoids about the cooling water system:

• It supplies 170,000 gallons per minute (~10.7 cubic meters per second) of cooling water.
• It is one of the nation’s first large utility plants to go through the EPA Clean Water Act, Section 316(b) process in its entirety.
• Screens were fine slot (30 thousandth of an inch / 0.75 mm) mechanically cleaned cylindrical wedge-wire screens supplied by Intake Screens Incorporated (ISI), with whom Makai worked closely on the project.
• Makai used an integrated design approach to this system, optimizing the structure through a continuous iteration of CFD (computational fluid dynamics), FEA (finite element analysis), and value engineering on the structural arrangement for constructability, fabrication, and shipping.
• The above design actually inspired this year’s comical Makai Holiday Card! If you haven’t seen the short movie yet, we think it’s worth a laugh or two.

Makai worked closely with Intake Screens Inc. and other subcontractors on the project. Our team delivered a custom solution for the client that meets their strict hydraulic limitations, their budget, as well as the stringent EPA 316b guidelines that will help to preserve the marine ecosystem.

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In late 2016, Makai completed the installation of sophisticated advanced manufacturing equipment for the rapid prototyping and manufacture of marine-grade heat exchangers at our Ocean Energy Research Center on the Natural Energy Lab of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) campus. This project was made possible by grants from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in partnership with University of Hawaii’s Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (UH-HNEI), with matching funds from the High Technology Development Corporation’s Manufacturing Assistance Program (MAP).

This new, state-of-the-art facility features advanced manufacturing equipment to be used in fabrication of entirely new and innovative heat exchanger designs. In addition to serving Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) power plants, these heat exchanger units can be used in a variety of applications, including:

• seawater and lake water cooling for power plants,
• liquid natural gas (LNG) liquefaction,
• paper pulp mills,
• steel and iron ore mills,
• food & beverage processing plants,
• petrochemical facilities,
• desalination, and
• shipboard cooling – especially for the U.S. Navy.

With an increasingly electrified population and concerns about energy efficiency and carbon footprint increasing worldwide, industrial and military users are looking for ways to make more efficient use of their thermal energy resources. Makai’s new heat exchangers are being developed to address these demands.

Makai is now offering an advanced cable laying course for operators who have managed real cable installations at-sea using MakaiLay. In addition to filling any knowledge gaps that operators might have in basic lay operations, this MakaiLay Level-II training course focuses on more advanced scenarios that might arise at-sea.

This course produces graduates who are better equipped to install subsea cable accurately, safely, and swiftly, which benefits the installation company, the cable owners, the insurers, and of course the operators themselves.

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Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc. made multiple new sales of its popular software for route engineering, installation planning, and real-time lay control of subsea cables.

“We are pleased to announce multiple sales of MakaiPlan, MakaiPlan Pro, and MakaiLay to existing and new customers.” said Dr. Venkata Jasti, Makai’s Manager of Submarine Cable Systems. “We’ve worked hard on improving the functionality and user-friendliness of Makai’s software suite, especially for subsea power cables. Helping our customers succeed in their route engineering, installation planning, and at-sea cable laying operations is what drives us.”

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Makai has released version 6.0 of MakaiPlan Pro, which is a popular software for planning and simulating subsea power and telecom cable installations. MakaiPlan Pro includes the tools of MakaiPlan, which is the industry standard GIS cable route engineering software. In addition, MakaiPlan Pro allows the user to perform powerful and precise 3-D, dynamic simulations of a submarine cable installation.

The operator can quickly simulate an entire cable lay in advance from the comfort of the office at up to 50 times faster than real-time. This is useful for developing Ship Installation plans, performing pre-lay and post-lay analysis, and also for operator training. The operator can run advanced simulations for conducting Installation Feasibility Studies and Equipment Selection.

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The latest idea to emerge from Hawaii’s pioneering alternative energy scene is Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), a process that produces electricity by using the temperature difference between the warm ocean surface waters of tropical areas and the much colder deep water below. It may sound strange at first, but this unusual path to collecting another kind of solar energy appears to work.

Makai Ocean Engineering has constructed a 105-kilowatt test project at a cost of $5 million to prove the concept. It’s paid for in part by the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research — the Navy has a goal to get 50 percent of its shore-based energy from alternative sources within five years — and the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute.

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Makai has been hired as an engineering consultant by Cornell for a project that will clean the intake pipelines for the university’s Lake Source Cooling system. The Lake Source Cooling (LSC) project uses cold lake water from Lake Cayuga to provide more environmentally-friendly cooling for air conditioning, reducing the campus energy use for cooling by 80%, and saving an average of 25 million kilowatt-hours per year of electricity.

Under the current pipeline cleaning contract, Makai helped Cornell define the work scope, suggested and interviewed potential contractors, reviewed contractor proposals, and Makai is now providing technical support during the construction process. Makai was the engineering firm originally responsible for designing the offshore pipelines, custom retrievable intake structure that can be lifted to the surface to facilitate cleaning, and shoreline crossings for the LSC system.

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Makai is expanding its environmental and coastal modeling services for clients who discharge into, or withdraw from, the world’s oceans, lakes, and reservoirs. Recently, Makai completed a 3-year effort to adapt the EPA-approved Environmental Fluid Dynamics Code (EFDC) into a robust and flexible dispersion and water quality modeling tool.

The new Makai EFDC modeling system (M-EFDC) is specifically designed to simulate and predict the dispersion of large industrial water flows. Combined with Makai’s experienced team, the new M-EFDC enables cost-effective modeling solutions ranging from initial project planning to more rigorous regulatory submittals and watershed management efforts.

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Makai Ocean Engineering celebrates the completion of the world’s largest operational Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) power plant with a dedication ceremony held on Friday, August 21, at 11:00 a.m. at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA).

Makai’s OTEC power plant uses the temperature difference between the ocean’s cold deep water and warm surface water to generate clean, renewable electricity that is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The NELHA-sited plant will generate 100 kilowatts of sustainable, continuous electricity—enough to power 120 Hawaii homes annually.

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Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc. is now providing expanded corrosion services at their Marine Corrosion Laboratory (MCL) in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. The MCL is located at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA), making it the only location in the U.S. where large flows of shallow and deep seawater from depths up to 3,000 feet are continuously available.

The MCL is staffed with corrosion engineers and state-of-the-art equipment for a wide range of research, development, testing & evaluation (RDT&E) services in the field of marine corrosion. Capabilities at the lab include both basic corrosion science research and applied engineering solutions for the prevention of marine corrosion, and are complemented by a strong relationship with researchers at the University of Hawaii’s Hawaii Corrosion Laboratory.

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Makai Ocean Engineering has completed a feasibility study of a district cooling system that uses deep cold seawater, known as seawater air conditioning (SWAC). The study was commissioned by CAF – Development Bank of Latin America, with co-financing from the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and used Makai’s recently upgraded district cooling software.

Eight locations in the Caribbean were analyzed for SWAC development, which were then down-selected to two sites considered to be most promising: Montego Bay in Jamaica, and Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. The final report that summarizes the study is now available upon request.

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Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc. continues to address issues experienced by the subsea power cable industry by significantly enhancing the world’s leading submarine cable lay software, MakaiLay, and its desktop simulation sister product, MakaiPlan Pro. Specifically, three key features are being integrated into the Power Cable modules for each of these products that are built specifically for power cable installers.

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Ocean-Tec Systems is offering a five (5) day MakaiLay Level 1 training course in Darlington, UK. Training will be provided by one of Makai’s experienced personnel, heavily experienced in the use of the application during both planning and cable lay activities. The course covers route planning, cable lay physics and cable installation. Additional course topics include data analysis, file I/O and troubleshooting.

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Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc. has completed a contract by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) to research and develop Seawater Air Conditioning (SWAC) technology. SWAC is a method to provide cold air conditioning to buildings using a district cooling system that uses an available cold water reservoir as its source (usually deep cold water from a lake or ocean).

SWAC can provide air conditioning using about one-tenth of the energy required for conventional air conditioning. The Navy has recently expressed interest in implementing SWAC district cooling systems at island bases using the Energy Savings Performance Contract (ESPC) model.

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Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc. and the University of Hawaii (UH) have jointly developed a novel autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that can effectively deploy seafloor sensing equipment by combining features of a free-swimming AUV and those of a bottom crawling vehicle.

This ‘hybrid’ autonomous underwater vehicle is called the Bottom-Skimming AUV, or B-SAUV. The B-SAUV is propelled by thrusters but can touch, glide along, and interact with the seafloor.

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Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc. has been awarded a competitive Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant focused on developing a new deep-drifting sonobuoy. Sonobuoys consist of a surface float connected by a tether to a hydrophone array that is used to listen for submarines in the ocean. Sonobuoys with hydrophones that have a short/shallow tether have a limited listening range.

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Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc. recently modified the popular telecom cable lay software, MakaiLay, to address specific issues experienced by the subsea power cable industry. The result of this effort was MakaiLay Power, a real-time software tool for controlling power cable deployment at-sea.

This software was recently purchased and used by the OUOCI Consortium to install a subsea power cable in Venezuela for the Chacopata-Margarita Submarine Cable Interconnection Project.

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Pacific Business News will honor business and nonprofits at the Business Leadership Hawaii dinner awards banquet on Thursday, November 13 at the Sheraton Waikiki, Maui & Kauai Ballrooms.

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CAF – Development Bank of Latin America has identified the potential use of deep seawater air conditioning (SWAC) systems in the Caribbean. Hotels and resorts are large consumers of electrical energy in Caribbean islands, and conventional air conditioning (A/C) systems account for around 40% of the total energy consumption in such buildings. SWAC uses deep cold seawater to replace the chillers used in conventional A/C systems, greatly reducing the electrical consumption and costs.

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Makai’s Ocean Energy Research Center (OERC) in Kona, Hawaii has received several major pieces of equipment for its Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) demonstration plant. Two new heat exchangers (2-megawatt thermal duty each), and a 100 kilowatt ammonia turbine-generator have arrived and are in various stages of installation and testing.

To date, Makai has tested four condensers and three evaporators at the OERC, each made of either aluminum or titanium. The facility has been designed to easily swap out OTEC heat exchangers, and test as many as six simultaneously.

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This month, the Hawaii-based firm Makai Ocean Engineering will prepare to hoist a small turbine up a spare steel structure with a commanding view of the Pacific Ocean. There, with a flood of near-freezing water piped up from 1,000 meters below the surface, the company will put what will be the largest experimental ocean thermal energy plant through its paces.

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It’s being called the Tahiti Mahana Beach Resorts and Spa, but it’s about so much more than beachfront relaxation.

For the people of Tahiti, it’s an economic shot in the arm, a 130-acre project in Punaauia, near Papeete, that includes a 500,000-square-foot shopping mall, condos, convention center, casino, office space, movie theaters, bowling alley, parks and promenades, all for local use, as well as hotels ranging from three- to six-star.

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Makai has released version 6.0 of MakaiPlan, the industry standard GIS cable route engineering software. MakaiPlan is a tool to create and edit submarine cable routes, define cables and in-line bodies, define and adjust slack, instantly create Route Positioning Lists (RPLs) and Straight Line Diagrams (SLDs), and estimate system costs. Multiple planners and designers work interactively on cable installations with easy access to and exchange of project data.

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Makai made sales of MakaiPlan, GIS cable route-planning software, and MakaiPlan Pro, cable lay simulation software. Makai’s software continues to serve as the industry standard for cable planners and installers who serve the subsea telecom cable, power cable, and military markets.

“We are excited to welcome several new clients to the large and growing club of MakaiPlan and MakaiPlan Pro users.” said Dr. Jose Andres, CEO of Makai. “Selecting the best cable route and creating a Ship Installation Plan for the cable lay are two critical steps in the development cycle for subsea cable projects. Makai is proud to provide tools that streamline these steps for our clients.”

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Makai Ocean Engineering has recently made multiple sales of their full-featured GIS route engineering software, MakaiPlan, to power cable installers who serve the offshore renewable energy market. “We have been monitoring the offshore renewables market closely,” said Dr. Jose Andres, CEO of Makai, “and we are excited that our planning and installation tools are being adopted so rapidly.

The offshore wind and tidal markets present an attractive opportunity for us to offer proven cable software tools and training that we have developed for the telecom cable market. Makai will continue to work closely with our clients to develop new features that address the unique challenges of subsea power cables.”

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Makai Ocean Engineering has received a $3.6 million contract from the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute and the Office of Naval Research for research and design on the marine renewable energy known as Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, or OTEC. Makai will perform this work at their Ocean Energy Research Center, located in Kona, Hawaii, which is the largest OTEC research facility in the world. OTEC holds great promise because the tropical ocean is earth’s largest solar collector.

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S. B. Submarine Systems Co., Ltd. (SBSS) has installed Makai’s cable installation software, MakaiLay, on the CS Fu Hai, a submarine cable ship. SBSS installed the latest MakaiLay software with full control capabilities this summer while the CS Fu Hai was dry-docked in Hong Kong.

Makai engineers trained CS Fu Hai crewmembers to operate the software during this time. With this purchase, SBSS displays confidence in MakaiLay to reduce the cost and risk of operations for submarine cable jobs in the telecom, power cable, and offshore oil & gas exploration markets.

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BIG ISLAND, HAWAII — Can you imagine a 100-megawatt renewable energy power plant capable of running this entire island of 185,000 people? I can, because I’ve seen a scale model.

I’m on the Big Island of Hawaii, which has an energy problem. Although solar energy is abundant, most of the island runs on expensive imported fossil fuel. Gasoline is $5 a gallon, electricity as much as 46 cents a kilowatt hour. There has to be a better way, and maybe there is.

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SAIC has purchased two MakaiLay Seismic licenses and one MakaiPlan Pro Seismic license for use in their seismic oil and gas exploration projects. SAIC owns and operates modularized cable engines and cable installation equipment together with well trained and certified MakaiLay operators to install submarine cables worldwide. SAIC often leases vessels of opportunity in the project region with which they deploy the Ocean Bottom Cables (OBCs) or node arrays.

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Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc. is confirmed to present on three important aspects of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) technology at an upcoming conference in Honolulu, Hawaii September 9 – 11. The conference, called the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit, has a special OTEC Symposium portion, which is being organized by the USA’s NOAA and its Korean counterpart, KIOST. The symposium will feature presentations and exhibits by Makai and other OTEC specialists from around the world.

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Global Marine Systems Ltd is in the process of converting six of its cable installation and repair vessels to begin using the latest Makai software technology. With the addition of GMSL to the list of customers, Makai software products are now used by every single large installer and most of the smaller telecom cable installers in the world, accounting for more than 80% of the world’s cable installation fleet. GMSL vessels will now use the latest versions of three different Makai cable software products.

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Makai Ocean Engineering releases the Makai Repair software. Makai Repair extends the capability of Makai’s industry-standard submarine cable planning and installation software suite to include at-sea cable repair and recovery operations. It is a standalone product which runs on a standard PC operating with Microsoft Windows 7, 8 or XP which is installed on a repair vessel. The software is available in two versions: Standard, and Professional Pro, depending on the client’s needs.

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MakaiPlan 5.1 has been released. With over 270 licenses sold worldwide, MakaiPlan is the telecommunications industry standard software tool for creating submarine cable routes, defining cables and in-line bodies, editing routes, defining and adjusting slack, and instantly creating RPLs and SLDs. This version includes many new significant features also useful to the marine renewable industry where acceptance of MakaiPlan is rapidly growing.

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Makai Ocean Engineering, Inc. has achieved ISO 9001:2008 certification, an internationally recognized standard for quality management systems. The Certificate is only awarded to companies that can demonstrate their ability to consistently provide products and services that meet customer requirements, placing customer satisfaction as a key component of those requirements.

The ISO 9001:2008 certification for engineering, design services and software development for commercial and government applications ensures that Makai adheres to documented processes and procedures and continues to improve the efficiency and quality of products and services worldwide.

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Makai Ocean Engineering announced two endeavors in assisting the Navy to reach its alternative energy goals. The first is the design, planning and procurement of a 100-kilowatt turbine-generator for the Hawai’i Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) Test Facility. The second project includes the installation and operation of this turbine-generator, as well as the design and testing of two new OTEC heat exchangers. “Makai Ocean Engineering is committed to developing alternative energy solutions that are impactful and ahead of the curve,” said Billy Pieper, Vice President, Makai Ocean Engineering.

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