Atargis Energy Corp.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: COMPANY

INITIAL LIGHT BULB As an aeronautical research scientist at the Air Force Academy since 2000, Dr. Stefan Siegel moonlighted working on an underwater hydrofoil that could capture energy from the ocean's currents better than existing technologies could.

In 2008, Siegel was working in the field of feedback flow control, studying how to control the airflow around an aircraft wing and keep the plane in the air. After reading a Popular Science article on wave energy, he thought such a device might just be the "killer application for feedback flow control," he says.

He left his job at the academy and launched Atargis Energy Corp., named for the fish god of the Philistines, with Victor Korea in 2010 to commercialize the technology.

IN A NUTSHELL "There's no such thing as a large-scale wave energy generator in the open ocean," Siegel says. "They produce power at far too high of a cost." He says Atargis' hydrofoil-based design is a game-changer in that it's projected to be cheaper than either solar or wind. And not only is it more efficient and less expensive on a per-kilowatt basis, it's also more storm-proof.

Sensors detect waves before they hit, and Atargis' technology makes the necessary adjustments. "By doing so we can interact more efficiently with waves of different height and length, and this efficiency in turn reduces the cost of energy since we get more wave energy converted to electricity," Siegel explains. "We can also feather the blades and move them to a neutral position in case the wave is larger than what our converter can handle to prevent storm damage."

Atargis has successfully tank-tested a 1/10-scale model of its design at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. "We were able to confirm...