Our Work

Joint Innovation Program
Overview

Our Areas of Focus
Sustainable Fishing & Seafood
Healthy Ocean Ecosystems
Digital Transformation
Maritime decarbonization
Renewable ocean energy
Our Model
The Joint Innovation advances the mission of Maritime Blue through three methods: Collaboratives, Joint Innovation Projects (JIPs), and Strategic Initiatives.
Collaboratives
Lead and facilitate a formalized group of partners and stakeholders with a clear mission within Maritime Blue’s strategic areas of focus to accelerate emerging markets and address blue economy challenges.
Joint Innovation Projects
Multi-stakeholder partnership around blue economy projects/topics to accelerate technology demonstrations.
Strategic Initiatives
Engage with parnters to provide and support thought leadership on key blue economy initiatives and projects.
Area of Focus
Sustainable Fishing and Seafood
Collaborative: Washington State Kelp Growers
Maritime Blue is administering an 18-month planning grant to investigate and design collaborative structures that will support Washington’s emerging seaweed industry. Working with established growers, we aim to determine optimal approaches for market development, shared infrastructure, and industry growth.
Project: COVID-19 Early Detection for Fisheries and Maritime
Timeline: 2020-2023
Providing the technology and communications platform to allow the fishing and maritime sector to return to work safely and build a pilot that can be scaled to other sectors and regions. Every summer 10,000 plus people go to work in the Alaska based fisheries through Washington State. How do we support and enable this activity and workforce in a way that is safe and not contributing to the spread of COVID-19, threatening small communities throughout Alaska and hence, the entire fishery itself? How can we monitor and track the health of the workforce who is particularly high risk due to the nature of the work?

Project Scope
- IHME will build a survey, provide data analysis, and dashboard for early detection
- Survey results will inform and support businesses internal data collection needs
- DHM will work with the Fishing and Maritime industry to support operationalization
- Engage in further technology partnership to ensure efficient and safe data transfer to and from vessels
- Scale the solution in concert with other contact tracing efforts to be utilized in other high risk workforce sectors and eventually to whole communities, regions and states.
Benefits
Partners
This project is supported by the Washington State Department of Commerce’s U.S. Economic Development Administration Safe Start grant.
Links
Area of Focus
Healthy Ocean Ecosystems
Collaborative: Quiet Sound
Quiet Sound is a non-regulatory coalition whose goal is to better understand and reduce the cumulative effects of acoustic and physical disturbance from large commercial vessels (such as large oceangoing vessels, tugs, and public transit vessels) on Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW) throughout their range in Washington state. The Quiet Sound program will likely have added benefits for other species and sectors. Quiet Sound will implement voluntary shipping noise reduction initiatives and monitoring programs through the range of the Southern Resident killer whales in Washington State, in coordination with Canadian and United States authorities.
Area of Focus
Digital Transformation
Project: Tacoma Blue Edge Network Feasibility Study
Timeline: September 2021 – December 2022
The Tacoma Tideflats area is uniquely poised to insert itself as an early adopter of private, enterprise scale 5G network and edge computing technology and set itself as a trailblazer on the path to innovation and sustainability to foster a growing maritime economy. The Tacoma Tideflats would benefit from the digitization of transportation, real time awareness of the port area, just-in-time arrival of vessels and lower carbon emissions due to shorter waiting times for port calls.

See More
- Orchestration and Efficiency: Working together in new ways (enabled by data and technology) to create efficiency and transparency across the Tideflats, offering an end-to-end view of the supply chain.
- Infrastructure Modernization: Improve the physical and virtual infrastructure including where equipment is moved and stored, traffic management, connectivity dead zones, siloed data, manual processes and cybersecurity.
- Improving Safety: Concerns for worker and community safety and the desire to consider new ways of operating to put safety first.
- Enabling a Sustainable Future: Put ecological and community health at the forefront of Tacoma Tideflats operations, technologies and processes.
Recommendations and Next Steps
Washington Maritime Blue is prepared to further engage with coalition partners to pilot a private 5G network. This allows constituents to see what’s possible by establishing a network proof-of-concept (POC) zone and testing a subset of key uses cases that benefit a broader group.
Opportunity 1 – Center for Urban Waters & 5G Open Innovation Lab for Ports
In order to meet the use cases laid out by the City of Tacoma, University of Washington – Tacoma, and Washington Maritime Blue’s Tacoma Maritime Innovation Incubator, we would ensure that Zone 1 of the above network layout has dense coverage including the location of edge computing hardware. Providing access to a private network to innovators and startups seeking to apply IoT technology to blue economy sectors will amplify the Tacoma area as the prime region in North America for tech development. The Field Lab would also allow Washington Maritime Blue and partners to facilitate and convene specific technology challenges that address key use cases benefiting from shared data and utilization. It would also enable further development of the Northwest Seaport Alliance and Port of Tacoma’s vision for a “Port Community System”.
Opportunity 2 – Husky Terminal
Building out dense coverage over Zone 4 enables early adoption and pilot use cases for Husky Terminal and allows a broader set of stakeholders to see value in the network for their own operations. It would begin to generate vast data sets that could be used to inform shared data solutions. This also begins to open up markets for current and future solutions providers.
Opportunity 3 – Other interested port operator or manufacturer
If, during early planning, another early adopter is identified and ready to build on a slice of the network, we could provide appropriate coverage based on the details of the proposed use cases.
Through knowledge sharing, collaborative project development, and enabling an ecosystem for innovation, the Tacoma Tideflats will collectively realize a shared vision for a sustainable and equitable economy and port community.
Project Scope
Launch a jointly promoted Maritime Blue/5G OI Lab Field Lab with the intention of making Tacoma a destination for startup innovation, industry collaborations, and academic research. Collect the data we need to address the major difficulties we face so that the Port can make data driven decisions.
Benefits
None of this leads to replacing existing companies and employees. This project does not promote port automation or push out companies who do not need technology. It simply provides massive quantities of real-time, persistent data that can be used by anyone who wants to make Tacoma a better place to work and live.
Partners
Produced By
Tacoma Tideflats 5G Network Feasibility Study Docs
Area of Focus
Maritime Decarbonization
Collaborative: Sustainable Maritime Fuels
The Sustainable Maritime Fuels Collaborative brings together supply and demand stakeholders to accelerate production and use of sustainable maritime fuels and technologies in Washington.
Project: Zero Emission Fast Foil Ferry
A zero-emission, clean transit concept for a high-speed hydrofoil craft using lightweight carbon fiber hull construction. Vision is to help relaunch the “Mosquito” fleet & reduce vehicle traffic. A collaborative approach is needed to address challenges & opportunities. The foil ferry can offer a safe, reliable & cost-effective option, while minimizing the environmental impact on air & water quality as well as marine life. Washington companies to develop state of the art technology & competence to support our region as a center of excellence for maritime decarbonization.

Project Scope
- Advance design spiral from concept to preliminary design, to contract design for construction
- Economic & environmental benefits & impacts
- Terminal & shoreside infrastructure requirements
- Materials & construction
- Routing analysis & operations
- Advance detection & avoidance strategies
- Regulatory, testing & permitting
Hybrid funding model for first demonstration
Benefits
Partners
Project: Tacoma Green Hydrogen

Project Scope
- Build and scale a Maritime hydrogen ecosystem through a project that demonstrates the concept of a port-based hydrogen (H2) solution utilizing Formic Acid for lower cost, safer storage and movement.
- This demonstration system will create a liquid H2 carrier (LHC) directly from green renewable electricity, water and recycled CO2. This unique technology is provided by partners: OCO Inc., whose electrolyzer technology creates Formic Acid LHC and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, that provides reformer technology to release the H2 from formic acid when needed.
- Tacoma Power will provide the green electricity, primarily from hydroelectricity (97% carbon free) and will also be the H2 end user to generate energy on demand for cold-ironing services to berthed vessels.
- DNV to provide techno-economic modeling so demo can be used for scaling-out H2 in other maritime applications such as trucks, trains, vessels and cargo handling.
Benefits
Partners
Area of Focus
Renewable Ocean Energy
Collaborative: Blue Wind Supply Chain
The Maritime Blue Wind collaborative is a nonregulatory coalition with a mission to support the strategic development and activation of Washington’s participation in the West Coast-wide floating OSW supply chain through a collaborative and community benefits approach.
Strategic Engagements
Collaborative efforts where Maritime Blue is engaged with partners while not taking a leadership role.