Ocean Grazer winner of first Ben Feringa Impact Award

The University of Groningen (UG) established the Ben Feringa Impact Award to highlight the exceptional achievements of researchers and students in the field of knowledge utilization. This refers to the connection between the academic world of the UG and society at large. The prize is divided into two categories: one for researchers and one for students. The winning project in the category for researchers is ‘Ocean Grazer’, by Wout Prins, Antonis Vakis and Bayu Jayawardhana, researchers of ENTEG. The winning project in the category for students is ‘IvyONe’, by Niels Wijermans.

Earlier this year, the selection committee unanimously selected two winning projects and two honourable mentions. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the announcement of the winners and the award ceremony had to be postponed to this autumn.

The winning project in the category for researchers is ‘Ocean Grazer’, by Wout Prins, Antonis Vakis and Bayu Jayawardhana of the Faculty of Science and Engineering. The Ocean Grazer harvests renewable energy from sea waves and integrates this with a modular solution for the large-scale storage of electricity that is generated by wind turbines and floating solar panels at sea. As a result, clean energy can be generated under all weather conditions. The mechanism is based on technology from a hydroelectric plant, technology that has been proven to be highly reliable and efficient for over a century.

more information