BANGOR, Maine — Portland-based Ocean Renewable Power Company officials met Friday morning at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s regional office in Bangor with a small group of state and federal regulators to outline plans to place 24 underwater turbines in the Western Passage of the Bay of Fundy in 2014.
The project would be the next phase of Ocean Renewable’s ongoing Washington County pilot project involving the first generation of its TidGen turbine, which was submerged at a 60-acre Cobscook Bay test site near Eastport in mid-August. Deployment of the 80,000-pound turbine assembly followed millions of dollars of investment during eight years of design, fabrication and testing.
After being underwater for 12 weeks and transmitting electricity since mid-September from the pilot project unit to an on-shore Bangor Hydro substation, the turbine array was pulled from the water Thursday for an onshore quarterly inspection required under the terms of a $10 million Department of Energy federal grant. The unit is expected to remain in dry dock at the Eastport Boat School pier for the next two weeks. Two other similar turbines will be submerged some time next year.
Nathan Johnson, ORPC’s manager of environmental affairs, said Friday that an initial inspection showed “no surprises” and that the unit has been performing within design specifications. The rectangular turbine resembles an elongated paddle wheel that is 98 feet wide and almost 20 feet high. When submerged in a 6-knot tidal current, the turbine can generate as many as 150 kilowatts, enough electricity to supply 20 to 25 homes.
Herbert Scribner, ORPC’s director of environmental affairs, said Friday that the planned deployment of next-generation turbine technology in a 170-acre area of Western Passage of Paris Point represents “Chapter Two in Maine’s tidal energy effort.”
“The technology for Western Passage evolved from the work we are doing in Cobscook Bay,” Scribner said. “The plans are far more mature, because we know more and are learning more on a continuing basis because we are operating now.”
While the Cobscook Bay unit is submerged at a depth of less than 100 feet and is anchored to the sea floor, the technology being planned for deployment in Western Passage will operate in fast-flowing waters at depths ranging from 150 to 400 feet and will be tethered to the bottom. In some areas, turbine arrays will be stacked vertically.
Unlike Cobscook Bay, the Western Passage is a busy commercial shipping lane and an active fisherypopulated by a variety of whales, dolphins and seals.
“Western Passage is a very different place,” Scribner said. “This is a pilot project in which we are trying to identify the best way to design a hydrokinetic device for deeper, faster water and to get power to shore. When we’re ready, we’ll come back with a commercial application.”
Scribner said the lessons learned in the Cobscook Bay pilot project are being shared with other tidal-generation researchers, not only on the West Coast, but internationally as well.
“Our success has bred success,” said Glen Marquis, ORPC’s project development manager. “We’ve have had a lot of interest globally.”
ORPC plans to submit its draft pilot license application for its Western Passage project to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in June of next year, with a final application to be submitted by year’s end.
The company expects to continue to grow its Washington County generation capacity in the coming years to eventually meet the 5 megawatt maximum output authorized by the Maine Public Utilities Commission. ORPC is now negotiating 20-year power purchase agreements with Maine’s public utility companies.
FINALLY.
People been talking about tidal power as long, if not longer, than I’ve been alive.
Glad the testing has gone well.
FDR proposed it before he was President after observing the potential near Campobello.
The 1930s New Deal plan that thankfully never went anywhere was nothing like this. It was a grandiose, not very well thought out and unjustified scheme for damming the tides that would have flooded much of the private land in the region around Cobscook Bay. The current plans are for underwater turbines taking advantage deep underwater tidal currents off the west side of Campobello.
Your right, it was not very well thought out. Cobscook bay would have been a disaster.
Hey look fish graters! Actually I hope it is a success Good luck
What, You want them to kill fish??
..
I say if the Government is involved, or giving them money; that it should not happen. All this green energy will be gone as soon as we get a responsible Government in power. Let the Free market produce power.
Yes because fossil fuels are the way to go.
thats not what he was saying, no government subsidies to any power/fuel producer/company. including corn subsidies.
Any “business” that requires “subsidies” to survive is not a real business – it is a continuous drain – a parasite on the taxpayers who pay so that one entity with great lobbying skills can survive. If you need money, go to the bank like everyone else. If the bank will not lend you money, you probably should not be getting a loan. Doesn’t matter who it is – no one should be supported by government to be a commercial “success”. I don’t care if it’s General Motors (building factories in China as we speak), Angus King’s magical Wind Farm, or some other waste. I don’t even care if a Republican supports it – fraud waste and abuse will always be just that.
The US has more fossil fuels then anyone else in the world. The problem is the Obama administration will not let us touch them – whether it be oil, coal, or natural gas. Elect politicians who care about the voters – who care about people. Not radical environmentalists who want to preserve (not conserve) resources.
Big oil gets millions in subsides, and look at how we’re all getting screwed at the pump.
You’re kidding, Right!!!???? Any business that requires subsidies to survive is not a real business……and the US has more fossil fuels that Big Oil will control and profit from.all the while enjoying continuation of the subsidies they have enjoyed for as long as anyone can remember. So I will enjoy hearing your description of Big Oil companies and why they are entitled. And while you’re at it, please provide some proof of your choice of politicians that care about the people they represent. My God, it’s GOT to be the Kool-Aid!!!
Lots of moving parts in a wicked tidy spot.
Seems quite low voltage output for it all.
Glad federal grants can help, cause I doubt many private
developers would sink that much money out
in the Western Passage.
There is report from UMO that small fish (e.g., alewives) have some difficulty navigating around these devises during the night. These new turbines will be suspended in the water column in arrays drifting mildly in the current as opposed to the present method of bottom feeders. Maybe, just maybe, the costs might drop down to five million dollars for 25 homes. The recently pulled turbine will be at the Eastport boat school during the first week of November (2012).
Soon as the federal dollaz run out so will the project…. me ma and pa always sez that watta ‘n ‘lectricity don’t go ‘gether…..
as soon as fossil fuels run out…
Peak oil is a myth that has been perpetrated since the turn of the 20th century.
We’re ALWAYS running out, but curiously supplies continue to increase as new deposits are found the world over. We are sitting on 200 years plus of oil in the US alone and we haven’t even gotten that far down in the earth’s crust yet. With drilling technology advancing everyday, the peak oil line of bull looks more and more like the child’s fable it has always been. Time to grow up.
Of course we are running out, when you start to use a finite resource you are always going to be running out. Why do you think we keep find new supply? Cause we have to. As we use more we need more. Grow up, yes looking out for our country’s future is childish. We need new energy, the sooner we start the better.
“Growing up” is not government control of the economy and spreading myths about its “necessity” for “our country’s future” .
no one is saying giving the us control of the econmey. The private sector is not going to get us away from fossil fuels until it is right for them, not the nation. Fossil fuels are going away. Our future depends on getting us off of fossil fuels.
The entire progressive left and viros are trying to control the economy through dictates, inequitably manipulative taxes, and high tax redistributionism including “grants” and subsidies to selected cronies. The private productive sector in a free economy provides what there is a demand for, which provides for what we need. It is not supposed to do only what those political elitists who claim to “know better” demand while pretending they aren’t trying to control the economy. Government control over the economy has failed everywhere. We don’t need you to tell us what to do in the name of “growing up”. Fossil fuels will partially ‘go away’, phasing out in the distant future for which there is ample supply, as technology develops — or would develop if the viros would stop obstructing it. Viros have blocked nuclear power for decades. They only approve of energy production that is impractical on a large scale.
Supplies are not “found”, they are, and for over a century have been, developed with ever improving technologies, like the more recent fracking. Mining and drilling for coal and petroleum are not a primitive hunter gatherer means of survival. This is why the “supplies” are still good for over a hundred more years and beyond. The “peak oil” myth falsely assumes a static industry and ignores the role of the human mind and its creativity, which require freedom from government controls to successfully function in a modern, free, productive economy.
… everyone will say “why didn’t we plan ahead?”
Was TVA good for the South during the Depression and beyond?
Was Hoover Dam good for the West?
Was Bonneville Power Authority good for the Northwest?
Yes -all of the above.
This is why conservatives should never be allowed to formulate energy policy.
Conservatives give away big money to so-called “job creators” that don’t produce jobs – but balk at grants and tax breaks for entrepreneurs who actually create jobs and energy produced here at home.
Time to throw the bums out and get America going again.
Yessah
Obama spent 98 billion of our money on “green energy” projects. This outfit has a 10 million dollar federal grant. What are you talking about conservatives giving away money to job creators? What do you suppose that 98 billion dollars was hailed as doing? You got it, producing jobs. What it did was get us deeper in debt and line the pockets of Obama money men. While we the taxpayer has little or nothing to show for it. Ever hear of Sloyndra? Google it read it, eat your words.
I wish we only spent that much in Iraq and Afgahnistan
menebaght: “Conservatives give away big money to so-called ‘job creators’ that don’t produce jobs – but balk at grants and tax breaks for entrepreneurs who
actually create jobs and energy produced here at home.”
Not taxing someone more than he already is is not “giving away” anything. The money does not belong to the government to be “given” to its owner by not taking it.
No one has an obligation to give people “jobs” and not doing so is not an excuse to tax him. Is anyone who wants to retire now subject to having his retirement savings confiscated for not giving people jobs? “Jobs” has become the latest slogan for government controls and discriminatory taxes.
Government does not “create jobs”. Jobs, like other forms of trade, are a result of a productive economy in which people create something worth trading. Government attempting to dictate an economy through “tax credits” and “grants” as subsidies does not work and violates the rights of those forced to pay for it.
munebaght : “Was TVA good for the South during the Depression and beyond? Was Hoover Dam good for the West? Was Bonneville Power Authority good for the Northwest?
Yes -all of the above.”
No, they were not. The production of electric power is good, not it’s control by government. The Soviet Union built power plants, too, but no one would use that as an excuse for the Soviet government. New Deal policies taxing, controlling, and manipulating the economy kept the country in a depression for a decade. Government schemes like TVA in particular were intended to destroy the private utilities and used eminent domain against thousands of landowners and taxes for redistribution to do it.
and what do we get here in the local area? a couple jobs at $11 an hour? Will we see our electric rates being reduced. That would be more impressive.
we can’t have this, it might stop the flow of the Alewives for the Indians!!!
Hope it doesn’t kill trillions of bats like the wind mills do-laugh, laugh
“and we’re not going to retrieve the bottoms of the ocean”
“angus king is a smooth operator”
That photo isn’t what they are going to put in the water.. Deciption once again..
First they force the power companies to sign contracts on wind turbine and now underwater turbines, In a couple of years they will force the ratepayer to buy out their contract at 100% of its value.. Angus did that durning his tenure as governor, and that what the plan is again.. Thats how they will make their money, by having their contracts bought out.
And that’s not going to shred the fish up?
Can power 20 to 25 homes…lol. Have to cover the ocean floor from here to Florida just to power up Maine. We are stupid fools.
These are still tests to develop the technology and its feasibility.
It’s about time.
I love the smell of shredded dolphin in the morning, smells like electricity.
Why not just harvest electric eels?