A team of individuals working on a fossil fuel alternative based on technology developed at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County was selected for the National I-Corps Teams program, an intensive, seven-week training that guides participants through the customer discovery process with the goal of turning their technologies into successful products.
The team, named Transfinity, has developed a novel tidal current energy converter (TCEC) drivetrain that uses an infinitely variable transmission (IVT) to capture energy from tidal flows, similar to how wind turbines harvest energy from wind motion. The improved drivetrain is the result of research by Weidong Zhu, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UMBC, and Gang Li, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Mississippi State University.
Zhu and Li were the technical lead and co-technical lead, respectively, during the program. Additional team members included Kobby Osei-Kusi, founder and CEO of Pirl Technology, who served as the entrepreneurial lead, and Linda Folsom Jackson, director at InfoAge Solutions Inc., the team’s industry mentor.
“Unlike other alternatives to fossil fuels, like solar or wind power, tidal energy is both easy to forecast and less influenced by weather changes,” said Zhu. “This offers a significant advantage as the energy harvested can be reliably predicted.”
Commercializing TCECs has been historically challenging because they have a high cost of deployment and maintenance, and lack economies of scale, making them less cost-effective than alternative renewable energy collectors, such as solar panels and wind turbines.
By applying the research Zhu and Li conducted on IVTs for wind turbines to tidal current energy converter drivetrains, the team can offer improved efficiency, minimal output speed variation, low-maintenance requirements, increased durability, and scalability through a wide range of sizes. These improvements make TCECs a more practical choice economically, technologically, and environmentally.
During the I-Corps Teams program, Transfinity conducted many hours of customer discovery, reaching out to both potential customers and competitors.
“Our best interview came from a competitor who had recently commercialized a similar technology,” said Osei-Kusi. “We learned two key things: always make sure there is a customer lined up on the end, and that the supply chain in this industry is very opaque, which makes it difficult to form partnerships to actually bring your product to market.”
Moving forward, the team continues to seek out additional, non-dilutive funding to conduct further research and development on their product. They are also looking for potential customers and partners interested in their technology.
“I-Corps was a rapid-fire experience, challenging both our tacit and explicit assumptions by exposing them to the voice of the customer,” added Osei-Kusi. “This voice strips away false assumptions. While challenging, we came out much stronger and clearer about our path forward.”
Prior to completing the National I-Corps Teams program in spring 2024, Transfinity attended a regional I-Corps program hosted by the Maryland Energy Innovation Accelerator in the spring of 2020. Michael Leifman, an instructor for the Mid-Atlantic I-Corps Hub, was the team’s mentor during their regional cohort.
Zhu’s research has received over $1,100,000 in funding since 2013, including an NSF Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) grant for $550,000 in 2023. UMBC holds four U.S. patents around the technology, with an additional patent pending.
