The monitoring gap holding marine energy back
Tidal energy offers reliable, renewable power, but understanding its impact on marine life has been a persistent challenge. Powerful currents, biofouling, shifting sediments, and extreme pressure create conditions where most monitoring systems fail within weeks.
Without reliable, continuous data, regulators and developers face an impossible choice: accept uncertainty or stop deploying. MarineSitu was built to close that gap.
What the system delivers
Species detection and tracking
AI-assisted detection identifies and tracks fish and marine mammals in real time: species-level classification, trajectory, proximity, and behavioral flags.
Sonar + hydrophone integration
Imaging sonar provides visibility in turbid conditions. Hydrophones capture acoustic signatures. All data streams are time-synchronized.
Anti-fouling systems
UV-C lights and mechanical wipers keep viewports and sensor surfaces clear, validated across 141+ day deployments in high-fouling environments.
Time-synced multi-sensor streams
Camera, sonar, hydrophone, and environmental sensor data integrated into unified, timestamped records, ready for analysis and regulatory reporting.
Continuously improving models
Machine learning models are refined site-specifically using deployment data, increasing accuracy over time without requiring hardware changes.
Regulatory-ready outputs
Custom dashboards and automated reports designed for DOE, FERC, and agency review, cutting reporting effort significantly.
Monitoring the tough environments of tidal energy
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and the University of Washington's Applied Physics Lab (UW-APL) needed continuous, reliable ecological monitoring around a tidal turbine deployment, without the maintenance overhead that had defeated previous attempts.
MarineSitu deployed the Adaptable Monitoring Package (AMP) with custom detection models, anti-fouling systems, and integrated sonar, achieving 96% system uptime across a 141-day deployment in one of the most demanding marine environments on the planet.
"Our experience is that outputs from MarineSitu models generally took considerably less time to review, with some days requiring as little as an hour or two."
Chris Bassett, Research Scientist/Engineer Principal, UW-APLReady to deploy?
MarineSitu has over $10M in DOE-funded R&D behind marine energy monitoring specifically. We work directly with energy developers, national labs, and regulatory agencies from initial system design through data delivery.
Book a demo →