PHOTO COURTESY OF AQUA SUPERPOWER
Under Michigan’s Fresh Coast Maritime Challenge announced by Governor Gretchen Whitmer in April 2023, Aqua superPower is the first fast charge network company to be awarded a grant. The program is the first U.S. grant program to help companies decarbonize and electrify marinas and watercraft, helping to advance sustainable maritime transportation.
Aqua superPower was awarded $111,000 in grant funding, and on August 24 Elk Rapids Marina hosted Aqua superPower’s Michigan E-Marine Event to help build awareness of electric boating. The event was open to the public, and offered opportunities to ride on an electric boat, demonstrations of new technologies, and more.
“Here in Michigan we are blessed to see 21% of the world’s fresh surface water. Our Great Lakes are inland seas, supplying drinking water, recreation, and economic opportunity to hundreds of millions of people,” said Garlin Gilchrist II, Lieutenant Governor of Michigan who addressed the event. “That is why the Michigan E-Marine Event, bringing together stakeholders to build awareness for electric boating and to demonstrate the future of zero emission electric boating is so important. It builds on the Fresh Coast Maritime Challenge, a program to electrify Michigan marinas and watercraft. In the budget the Governor signed this summer, we funded the Freshwater Research and Innovation Center in Traverse City. The Center is going to bring together researchers and entrepreneurs from the freshwater and autonomous space to show how we can and will lead the way in clean water efficiency and mobility. Governor Whitmer and I are proud of the progress we’ve made in the state and we’re just getting started.”
As part of the challenge, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s (MEDC) Office of Future Mobility and Electrification (OFME) partnered with Traverse Connect to identify grant recipients and facilitate the distribution of funds to provide support for resources to establish what will become an evolving network of shore-side charging facilities for clean-fueled marine vessels and electric passenger vehicles operating on the Great Lakes. Six companies, including Aqua superPower, are the first cohort of recipients of $506,000 in total grant funding. Aqua superPower is already paving the way with chargers at Elk Rapids Marina and the Village of Northport, with plans for further installations at a number of neighboring marinas.
To learn more, visit michiganbusiness.org.
