DARPA Funds $7.79M Research Contract: Marine-Based Power Production at University of Maryland

The University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, has been awarded a $7,791,661 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract, with one option, for the BioLogical Undersea Energy program. This contract provides for successful deployments of an innovative microbial fuel cell system to achieve >0.1 kW continuous power production using marine organic matter as the “fuel” source. Work will be performed in College Park, Maryland (17%); Baltimore, Maryland (11%); Sugar Land, Texas (5%); Columbus, Ohio (44%); Newark, Delaware (4%); Harrisonburg, Virginia (3%); Boston, Massachusetts (9%); and Washington, D.C. (7%), with an expected completion date of August 2026. Fiscal 2024 research, development, test, and engineering funds in the amount of $1,583,887 are being obligated at time of award. This contract was a competitive acquisition under Broad Agency Announcement HR001124S0010 BioLogical Undersea Energy (BLUE), and five offers were received. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (HR0011-25-C-0004).