Water Current Energy Conversion Short Course

University of New Hampshire 

Durham, NH 

August 10-14, 2026

Course Overview 

This is a graduate level 5-day intensive introductory course on tidal and water current energy conversion. The course will include reviews of relevant foundational knowledge in topics such as fluid dynamics, open channel flow/hydraulics, and ocean waves and tides. The core course content will focus on tidal and water current energy conversion, with lectures covering theoretical, experimental and numerical approaches, including state-of-the-art experimental techniques and computational fluid dynamics. It will further include lectures on estuarine dynamics and tides, design of ocean structures, dynamics of moored systems, ocean instrumentation, underwater acoustics, coastal engineering/sediment transport, coastal and ocean mapping/seafloor characterization, environmental considerations and marine energy economics/LCOE. The course will include a laboratory experiment module with a 1-meter scale turbine test bed in a towing tank, and an open water experiment module at the AMEC-UNH Tidal Energy Test Site with the Open-Source Tidal Energy Converter (OSTEC) test bed.  

Course instructors include AMEC-affiliated faculty and researchers from The University of New Hampshire, Stony Brook University, Lehigh University and the North Carolina Coastal Studies Institute. 

 Course Information

  • This course is aimed at graduate students working in current energy conversion – including tidal, river and ocean currents.  

  • Completed application form  
    Required Documents from students: one page Personal Statement, Resume, Transcript (unofficial transcript acceptable) 
    Letter of Recommendation from Faculty or Advisor (in a separate email to course organizers )

  • Student overall preparation and coursework 

    Information provided in personal statement and letter of recommendation 

  • The course will be held at the Chase Ocean Engineering Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH, August 10-14, 2026. August 9 and August 15 should be reserved for travel.  

    Acceptance includes all course fees, travel, room, and board. Housing for participants will be provided on or adjacent to the UNH main campus. 

  • Participants must be willing to work in a laboratory setting using a towing tank, board a research vessel to traverse to the UNH Tidal Energy Test Site in Portsmouth, NH, and board and work on the deck of a floating Turbine Deployment Platform. 

  • Applications due by: March 31, 2026.
    Notification of acceptance or waitlist: April 30, 2026. 
    Commitment deadline: May 15, 2026. 

application opens soon