Partner: Dr. Sarah K. Henkel, Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center, Hatfield Marine Science Center, Oregon State University
Completed: December 2011
Cost: $99, 980 (Newport Survey)
Cost: $33,996 (South Coast Survey)
Download: Final Report – Newport (PDF)
Download: Final Report - South Coast (PDF)

The two reports—”Mapping and Assessment of the United States Ocean Wave Energy Resource” and “Assessment of Energy Production Potential from Tidal Streams in the United States“—calculate the maximum kinetic energy available from waves and tides off U.S. coasts that could be used for future energy production, and which represent largely untapped opportunities for renewable energy development in the United States.

The West Coast, including Alaska and Hawaii, has especially high potential for wave energy development, while significant opportunities for wave energy also exist along the East Coast. Additionally, parts of both the West and East Coasts have strong tides that could be tapped to produce energy.

Earlier this year, DOE announced the availability of its national tidal resource database, which maps the maximum theoretically available energy in the nation’s tidal streams. This database contributed to the “Assessment of Energy Production Potential from Tidal Streams in the United States” report, prepared by Georgia Tech.

The wave energy assessment report, titled “Mapping and Assessment of the United States Ocean Wave Energy Resource,” was prepared by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), with support and data validation from researchers at Virginia Tech and DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The report describes the methods used to produce geospatial data and to map the average annual and monthly significant wave height, wave energy period, mean direction, and wave power density in the coastal United States. NREL incorporated the data into a new marine and hydrokinetic energy section in their U.S. Renewable Resource atlas.

In addition to the wave and tidal resource assessments released today, DOE plans to release additional resource assessments for ocean current, ocean thermal gradients, and new hydropower resources in 2012. To support the development of technologies that can tap into these vast water power resources, DOE’s Water Power Program is undertaking a detailed technical and economic assessment of a wide range of water power technologies in order to more accurately predict the opportunities and costs of developing and deploying these innovative technologies. The Program is currently sponsoring over 40 demonstration projects that will advance the commercial readiness of these systems, provide first-of-a-kind, in-water performance data that will validate cost-of-energy predictions, and identify pathways for large cost reductions.

These resource assessments, techno-economic assessments, and technology demonstration projects are critical elements of DOE’s strategy to capture the very real opportunities associated with water power development, and to further define the path to supplying 15% of the nation’s electricity through water power technologies.

DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy invests in clean energy technologies that strengthen the economy, protect the environment, and reduce dependence on foreign oil. DOE’s Water Power Program is paving the way for industry and government to make sound investment and policy decisions about the deployment of renewable water power technologies by quantifying the nation’s theoretically available water power resources.

Governor John Kitzhaber has corralled a group of top thinkers in energy and conservation to draft a 10-year plan for Oregon’s energy future.

The move likely promises new gains in energy efficiency, a road map to cutting greenhouse gas emissions and streamlined siting requirements for new renewable energy projects.

It also looks to promote strong central management of climate and energy goals at the state, a unique approach in Oregon government that will likely consolidate its current approach to energy management.

For now, the plan is a series of recommendations from small groups, dubbed design teams, to the governor. Sent to Kitzhaber and his staff Dec. 16, they outline pie-in-the-sky goals for siting new energy facilities, lowering transportation emissions, boosting energy efficiency, mixing energy resources and streamlining governance.

“We have given the design team a pretty free set of boundaries,” said Michael Jung as policy director for Silver Spring Networks and a founding board member of Smart Grid Oregon. “There is not much that’s been taken off the table.”

Jung has been tapped to chair the 10 Year Energy Plan Task Force, as the collection of design teams is called.

“We are trying to get big, bold ideas,” he said.

Exactly what bold ideas have come forward so far is unclear. Though the task force isn’t shrouded in secrecy, Oregon’s traditional stakeholder process has been left at the door. Instead, insiders say, the idea is to put the most expansive ideas on the table before a public review.

Only the governor, key staff, Jung and a team of vice chairs –– Andrea Durbin, executive director of the Oregon Environmental Council; Kevin Lynch, director of policy and regulation for Iberdrola Renewables; and Roy Hemmingway, a former Oregon PUC chair who helped found the Northwest Power Planning Council and a long-time adviser to Kitzhaber –– will see them all. They’ll mine suggestions for overlap and gaps, and push the most viable toward a focused plan. Specific charges for more work will head back to the teams this month, with a draft plan to be made by spring. The public will have six weeks to weigh in on the backside before a final plan sets the stage for the 2013 legislative session next summer.
A clear directive

“The overall objective here I think is to really help inform and shape what will eventually become the governor’s energy agenda. We’ve all been through the multi-year, heavy-on-process exercises … for the most part they sit on a shelf and gather dust. And what we really wanted to do here was something different,” Jung said.

Slow planning has so far been a hallmark of Oregon’s approach, frustrating energy entrepreneurs in ocean energy and commercial solar development, both of which are deeply trenched in planning processes stewarded by the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development. It’s not clear whether those processes will continue as the governor’s vision takes hold, but early directives to the task force make clear the group will take a fresh look at regulating marine energy and pursue a more focused approach to energy issues for the state than in the past.

Kitzhaber’s campaign energy plan called for integrating all state policies and programs with relevance to climate change and energy under the authority of a new governing body.

“This body will have a clear directive to oversee implementation of the state Energy and Climate Strategic Plan and the climate change communications and outreach strategies and the staff support to do so,” he wrote. “Unlike prior attempts to coordinate agencies for consistent energy and climate change policies, this will be a cabinet-level effort with executive authority.”

That statement appears on the task force website and in early directives.

Jung said that desire for change stems from a need for more consistency and clarity in the state’s approach to energy issues. Other key areas of the plan will surround carbon reduction, transportation planning for residential and freight travel options to lower energy use and emissions, creating a low-cost strategy for integrating renewable power into the grid and transmission planning while new energy resources — renewables such as wind and solar — take hold far from the transmission-wired Columbia Gorge.
Continuing to lead

“This region practically invented energy efficiency as a priority resource,” said Susan Ackerman, an attorney and Oregon PUC commissioner who is chair of the energy efficiency design team.

Since the Northwest Power Act targeted energy efficiency in 1980, she said, the state has made landmark headway on efficiency goals.

“I think the question in the governor’s mind is whether we are optimizing all of the opportunities that are cost effective,” Ackerman said.

Her group will look at incentives, regulatory and legislative changes, smart grid planning, and supporting advanced building materials.

Rachel Shimshak, executive director of the Renewable Northwest Project and chair of Kitzhaber’s siting design team, said the state must also decide how to prioritize clean energy resources as aging coal plants come offline.

“That is something I think will definitely happen in the next 10 years. How we manage that … is really important,” she said. “We’re hoping for much more diversity within the renewable energy spectrum –– more solar, especially as the cost of solar goes down, more biomass, more progress on wave, more biogas, just taking advantage of a broad spectrum of opportunities.”

Turning those opportunities into policy means balancing new energy projects with the state’s conservation, economic and social goals.

Looking ahead, “I think one of the challenges is making sure that we as a state are sort of looking at how to set a course that makes sense and enables us to actually achieve the end results that we want to achieve,” said Durbin. “The other challenge is getting stakeholders to really put aside their points of view and looking more holistically at what we need for the state.”

Jung said the group will look to states like Washington and Massachusetts — both of which have done their own energy planning — for ideas. But he said the planning also represents an opportunity for Oregon to continue to garnish the state’s own leadership role on energy efficiency, sustainable business and conservation goals.

“Our challenge is to see how we can continue to pace the pack,” he said.

The draft Implementation Plan will ensure the Federal Government targets limited resources more effectively to deliver demonstrable results for the American people, including predictability for users, more efficient and coordinated decision-making, and improved sharing of data and technology. For each action, the Plan outlines key milestones, identifies responsible agencies, and indicates the expected timeframe for completion.

National Ocean Policy Draft Implementation Plan

Wave energy is coming to the Oregon coast, the only questions are where and when. The when depends on funding and technology. The where depends very much on the decision of the Territorial Sea Plan (TSP) Working Group in the next few months.

At a meeting in Astoria last week, the state Ocean Policy Advisory Council’s TSP Working Group got an earful from fishermen, environmentalists and the wave energy industry about deploying wave energy devices in coastal waters.

A report identifying Oregon as a prime wave energy site touched off a modern day gold rush in 2007 as speculators rushed to lock up key areas.

Oregon’s territorial sea stretches from the shoreline out to three nautical miles. The state controls most of what happens in its waters. However, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has authority over energy permits. Shock waves rippled through fishing communities when FERC began issuing wave energy permits in productive crabbing grounds without consulting the state.

Former Gov. Ted Kulongski reached an agreement with FERC in 2008 to suspend issuing permits while the state updated its Territorial Sea Plan to accommodate marine renewable energy development.

Wave energy is a source of renewable energy and of job creation. According to a 2009 study by ECONorthwest, a modest total of 500 megawatts of wave energy generating capacity would create 802 coastal jobs during the five- to 10-year build period and require 264 employees to operate.

The Oregon Legislature has pumped about $10 million into the Oregon Wave Energy Trust to nurture the fledgling wave energy industry. Oregon State University and the University of Washington partnered to create the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC). The center is building a wave energy test site offshore from Newport.

Oregon statewide Planning Goal 19 requires the state to conserve the long-term values, benefits, and natural resources of the nearshore ocean when selecting marine renewable energy sites.

In September, the TSP Working Group completed an exhaustive mapping project (oregon.marinemap.org) to identify important biological, commercial, research and recreational sites. A first stab by the Department of Land Conservation and Development to make recommendations for wave energy development sites raised hackles at last week’s Astoria TSP meeting.

Paul Klarin, DLCD marine affairs coordinator, said his office classified marine uses into level one and level two resources. Areas and uses requiring a permit or license to operate were excluded from wave energy development.

You’re going to be protected from a new use conflicting with your existing right to use that area, Klarin said. What you have to remember is these maps are just ideas we’re forwarding to OPAC. How they choose to use that information is up to them.

Under a level two designation, areas used for recreational, research and others uses could potentially see wave energy development. Klarin said DLCD also excluded requests from other state agencies for exclusion areas.

The Surfrider Foundation, through a peer-reviewed study, identified a number of non-consumptive recreational use areas it wants excluded from energy development.

Oregonians make about 27 million trips to the coast a year, and 80 percent of those were specifically for ocean recreation, which directly contributed $2.4 billion to the economy, said Gus Gates, Surfrider’s Oregon policy manager. I’m livid that this information isn’t being used.

Add wave energy’s need for sandy bottom areas relatively close to ports and electrical grid connections together with existing uses, and only about 5 percent of the state’s territorial sea remains for renewable energy development.

Oregon Wave Energy Trust Director Jason Busch cautioned against blanket exclusions of TSP areas from offshore energy development. Busch said while floating power generating buoys were obviously not a fit everywhere, devices designed to operate from the seafloor might very well work in the same area without conflict.

Wave energy devices need flat sandy bottom areas preferred by Dungeness crabs for their anchoring systems. Commercial crabbers remain skeptical about giving up fishing grounds, and many believe rough ocean conditions will scatter buoys into nearby fishing waters.

One thousand fishermen go to sea, and they support another 1,000 jobs on shore, said Nick Furman, executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission. Those are real jobs, not projected jobs, jobs that put a $100,000,000 into local communities last year. Fisherman should not have to subsidize wave energy by relocating from highly productive areas.

David Allen, TSP Working Group chair, said his group would consider the DLCD draft maps together with public input and feedback from local governments.

The TSP Working Group selected the following communities for a series of public meetings starting in late January.

Bandon
Brookings
Waldport
Reedsport
Depoe Bay
Pacific City
Camp Rilea
Cannon Beach
Portland
Eugene

Meetings will run through March. Dates and times for each city will be announced in January.

The TSP Working Group’s recommendation for wave energy sites is the first step in a review process that will stretch into September when the Land Conservation and Development Commission is expected to approve changes to TSP.

For more information about wave energy and the Oregon territorial sea plan, go to www.oregonwave.com and www.oregonocean.info.

And that’s fine with Seaside Mayor Don Larson who wants more time to review how the plans would impact the economy and ocean views in Seaside.

“I am not sure that I want to see a large structure when I look out to the ocean,” said Larson. “I want more information before I can say whether harnessing wave energy will be positive for our area.”

Draft maps citing areas where potential offshore energy devices could be placed along the coast were unveiled in Astoria during two days of public workshops Dec. 15-16.

The Territorial Sea Plan Working Group and the Oregon Ocean Policy Advisory Council met to take public comment on changes to the state’s Territorial Sea Plan. The plan currently contains no language to address where energy production facilities might be placed off the Oregon coast.

In 2007, a number of wave energy companies submitted preliminary federal permit applications to develop energy production facilities off the coast. While none are ready to put devices into the water, the applications prompted a need to amend the Territorial Sea Plan, which governs activities within the three nautical miles of sea under the state’s jurisdiction.

Three layers of maps were unveiled during the two-day meeting. The maps will help OPAC determine areas to be set aside for fishing, recreational use and offshore energy production.

Each map – which can be found online at oregonocean.info – marks places predominately used in one of three areas – ecological, fishing and other “existing uses.” Places of multiple, overlapping uses are less likely to be used for further development.

The ecological layer contains information about nesting birds and their feeding areas, locations of rocky shores and reefs, and other ecologically sensitive places that should be preserved. A second layer marks places most commonly used for commercial fishing operations. The “existing uses” layer includes information on dredge material disposal sites, pipelines, navigation channels, utility corridors and other managed areas.

Recreational was taken into consideration as an “existing use,” but not to the extent that some interest groups wished.

“Recreation needs to be considered as an existing use,” argued Gus Gates of the Surfrider Foundation. “I’ve been involved in a two-year study that non-consumptive use – such as surfing, wildlife watching and just walking on the beach – brings $2.4 billion to the state each year.”

Using the layered maps, the Oregon Ocean Policy Advisory Council considered five different methods for determining future ocean development. By Dec. 16, they narrowed those options down to two – Option 2 and Option 5.

Under Option 2, any area with any use as defined on the layered maps would be considered unusable for offshore energy development. Paul Karin of the Department of Lands Conservation and Development said Option 2 would exclude about 95 percent of the territorial sea from offshore energy development.

Along the north Oregon coast, the 5 percent that would considered for use includes a large area around Nestucca Bay in south Tillamook County and a small sliver on the coast south of Astoria.

Option 5 would leave an additional 13 percent of the territorial sea open for further analysis and consideration. It opens up waters around Astoria, areas south of Astoria, and an area south of Garibaldi to possible development.

Option 5 also allows for temporary “floating zones,” which Karin described as “small areas where scientific equipment prototypes, for example, could be placed for a limited amount of time, a year or two. They would not be allowed to become permanent, large commercial operations.”

Public meetings on the two options will be held from mid-January through March in Reedsport, Waldport, Eagle Bay, Pacific City, Cannon Beach, Camp Rilea, Eugene and Portland. Dates and times will be announced.

After those meetings, the Territorial Sea Plan Working Group plans to give OPAC a recommendation on which plan to adopt. OPAC’s recommendation will be given to the Department of Lands Conservation and Development, which has the ultimate authority on the decision. The amended Territorial Sea Plan could be adopted as soon as September of next year, when the DLCD will meet in Salem.

As Oregon’s planning agencies continue their process for eventually designating portions of the state’s territorial sea for offshore wave-energy facilities, Clatsop County warns that zoning the ocean outright could potentially restrict the use of the territorial sea.

The state’s territorial sea is the three-mile expanse of the Pacific Ocean that runs like an unraveled ribbon up the Oregon Coast. With wave energy emerging as a potentially viable source of sustainable power, the state has begun the preliminary stages of determining where in the territorial sea the state could place wave-energy facilities without disrupting ocean wildlife and ecology, or recreational and existing business interests.

And while the state moves forward on its process, the county continues to look at its own options.

Clatsop County Commissioner Peter Huhtala presented the Territorial Sea Plan Working Group with the county’s position at the group’s heavily attended meeting Thursday at the Holiday Inn Express and Suites in Astoria.

The county supports using conditional uses for offshore development rather than zoning the territorial sea. Reading from the statement, Huhtala said maps and data that could be used to essentially zone the territorial sea should support but not dictate the state’s decisions. The county has supported the state’s plans to guide development of marine renewable energy but has also pushed to have its own public input and hearing process.

“Clatsop County intends to continue current efforts to update its comprehensive plan … and with policies adopted under the planning goals to ensure onshore impacts of renewable energy facilities in the territorial sea are addressed,” Huhtala said from the written statement.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Department of Land Conservation and Development presented preliminary draft maps at Thursday’s meeting. The maps break down the the territorial sea into three tiered levels, with the top level representing exclusionary zones, because of wildlife or ecological concerns. The maps are likely to change, as the state continues its process, expected to take another eight months.

“There’s no telling how this will change,” said David Allen, chairman of the state’s working group. “This isn’t the end. This is the beginning of the vetting process.”

The coast’s fishing and crabbing community remains highly critical of the state’s work, despite promises of more public input. Fishermen worry that the wave energy buoys would disrupt existing fishing routes or could damage crabbing pots.

“Wave energy and fishing are not compatible,” said Dale Beasley, president of the Columbia River Crab Fishermen Association. One big storm during crabbing season could send pots slamming into the buoy, where they could get caught and tangled.

“Can you imagine if 20,000 crab pots got entangled in these things? The industry would be ruined,” he said.

He said wave energy companies were “only interested in their investors’ gold” at the expense of an existing industry. The fishing community would likely oppose any plan that doesn’t place wave energy buoys off the ocean shelf, Beasley said.

While the fishing industry stays adamant in its opposition to the state’s plans, tentative as they are, conservation organizations say they’re cautiously optimistic that the state is taking steps in the right direction to protect fish and other wildlife.

International conservation organization Oceana released its own study of Oregon’s territorial sea in which it reached the same conclusions as the state. Ben Enticknap, the organization’s Pacific Project Manager, said state agencies have been careful to not rush ahead with mapping the territorial sea.

Saying that there wasn’t one area of Oregon’s territorial sea that wouldn’t be somehow disrupted by the development of offshore wave energy, Enticknap added that the state has taken important steps to mitigate those environmental risks. Wave energy will develop independent of the state’s planning, he said, so Oregon needs to be prepared to entice developers.

“We need to have this discussion now rather than in the future, after we’ve spent millions of dollars,” Enticknap said.

Oregon’s Ocean Planning Advisory Council is also holding its meeting at the Holiday Inn Express and Suites today until 4 p.m. to discuss the same topics.

“We are not in some kind of power struggle with the state. We are cooperating with the state.” – Peter Huhtala, Clatsop County Board of Commission vice chair

State and local officials are expected to emerge from a two-day meeting in Astoria Dec. 15 and Dec. 16 with recommendations on how Clatsop County can play a key role in regulation and development of wave energy projects.

“The plan is to review draft maps and actually look at areas that may be appropriate for such development, but would cause minimal conflict with existing ocean uses,” said Peter Huhtala, Clatsop County Board of Commission vice chair.

Specifically, Clatsop County Commissioners and planners are reviewing efforts to amend the Territorial Sea Plan (TSP) that is designed to manage the resources and activities in the state’s territorial sea from 0-3 nautical miles.

The need to review the TSP follows preliminary permit applications submitted in 2007 from a number of wave energy companies to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to develop energy production facilities off the Oregon coast.

But the wave energy development and a proposed system of marine reserves has triggered coastal community concerns.

“We are hearing from people concerned about the impact,” Huhtala said. “Property owners are worried they will lose their ocean view and that will impact their property value. We are also hearing from those in the hospitality industry, commercial fishing and recreation industries.”

Clatsop County is pressing to include the visual impact in any regulations developed in reviewing the wave energy projects.

“The impact from shore should be one of the elements seriously considered,” Huhtala said.

Clatsop County Commissioners are amending the county Comprehensive Plan to include elements of the ocean development, impact in the ocean and on the shore.

“We definitely feel that the county clearly has jurisdiction on the shore side and we are working cooperatively with the State of Oregon,” Huhtala said. “We are not in some kind of power struggle with the state. We are cooperating with the state.”

Huhtala recognizes the need to develop renewable energy resources.

“Wave energy development will put more money in the local economy and add more jobs,” he said. “It is not without its political and engineering challenges. But it can be done.”

Huhtala said how Clatsop County deals with the wave energy issue could be a blueprint for the rest of the state and other states across the nation.

“We are doing this from the bottom up as much as possible and with the best information as possible and we are connecting local and state process and planning,” he said.

Seaside Mayor Don Larson is following the process closely.

“I am not sure that I want to see a large structure when I look out to the ocean,” said Larson. “I want more information before I can say whether harnessing wave energy will be positive for our area.”

To follow the wave energy development issue, visit hht:/www.oregonocean.info

There are few contexts in which the U.S. can be described as a minnow, but in terms of exploiting wave and tidal energy it is – for the moment. George Marsh looks at the sector as it tries to establish a foothold in the states.

This qualification as a minnow is appropriate because there are signs that things might change. If the sector manages to build on present small beginnings, it is conceivable that the US could grow from minnow to mighty beast, just as it is now doing in wind. Given the country’s long Atlantic and Pacific coastlines and huge ocean resources, along with large tides in some areas, there is plenty of potential to be tapped.

Until recently, there was no grid-connected wave power generation anywhere in the country. That changed when Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) completed the first-ever grid connection of a wave energy device in the USA. The connection, in September, was between an OPT PowerBuoy system and the grid serving the US Marine Corps in Hawaii.

PowerBuoys are floating buoys anchored to the sea bed, power being derived from the buoy vertical motions induced by waves. A spokesperson said the connection at Hawaii demonstrated the ability of the PB40, a PowerBuoy capable of delivering 40 kW at peak, to send utility-grade renewable energy to the grid in a manner compliant with national and international standards.

First deployed in December 2009 in 100 ft of water, the Hawaii PowerBuoy has clocked up over three million power take-off cycles in 4400 hours of operation, as part of a US Navy project. A PB40 prototype had already demonstrated two years of operation in ocean conditions off Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Between them, these demonstrations bode well for the wave farm OPT intends to build some 2.5 miles off Reedsport, Oregon, on the US West Coast. For this, the USA’s first proposed commercial wave farm, OPT will next year install one of its P150 PowerBuoys (150 kWp), helped by a funding contribution from the Department of Energy (DoE).

This, however, is just a start in a longer-term project to locate 10 PB150s off Reedsport to produce some 4140 MWh/yr for the Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative (PNGC). There are 14 stakeholders in this venture. After that there could be further expansion, with the potential to deliver up to an estimated 50 MW to the grid.

Meanwhile, OPT is working on its next-generation buoy, the PB500 (500 kWp) which will form the basis for another intended wave park in Oregon, this time off the towns of Coos Bay and North Bend. This larger park would comprise up to 200 PowerBuoys with 20 undersea sub stations and a submarine cable to deliver generated power the 2.7 miles ashore and into the PNGC grid. This plan, if it goes ahead, could see the United States maintain its reputation for scale by establishing the world’s largest wave energy project.

Other OPT buoys are being deployed at Santona in Spain, at the Hayle Wave Hub off North Cornwall, UK, and in the Orkney Isles, Scotland. There are also projects in France and Portugal and OPT has a working base at Warwick in the UK. For Hayle, the company is planning a 3 MW array of PowerBuoys and sees this as a valuable monitored phase of its technology development.

With its activities, this 16-year-old company is helping to put Oregon in the vanguard of any movement in the USA to implement wave power on a utility scale. It is a repeat of the by-now familiar US pattern whereby individual states lead the way in encouraging renewables, with Federal policy being a less predictable and often intermittent affair.

According to the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE), the Oregon Wave Energy Trust tempts enterprise with an industry matching grant program, while the state also offers tax and other incentives plus a relatively favorable legislative environment.

Oregon’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RES) mandates that, by 2025, electricity suppliers must be generating 5-25% of power from qualifying renewable energy sources – the exact figure depending on the utility’s size. The Oregon Public Utilities Commission offers inducements similar to feed-in tariffs for power produced from renewables. Rebates for renewable projects, a loan program and a public benefit fund are among other blandishments.

Oregon may be a pathfinder, but it is not alone in wanting to exploit its wave power potential. Neighbor Washington State is reportedly contemplating production incentives as part of a package of inducements to encourage wave and ocean resource developers. On the other hand, to the south, California has not specifically targeted its substantial wave and tidal potential, despite policies that are highly favorable to renewables overall.

Perhaps with its abundance of solar, hydro-electric, wind, geothermal and biomass resources, it sees little need to do so.

Over on the East Coast, Rhode Island has announced plans for a US$45 million, 1.5 MW pilot wave energy project near Block Island. The initial phase of the program would be followed by a further 15-20 MW facility off the mainland.

Neighboring Massachusetts, though, has no known plans despite its pre-eminence in clean energy research and innovation, as well as considerable wave and tidal resources. According to ACORE, barriers to utility scale prospects include siting concerns, confusing permitting requirements and unclear interconnection standards – a story familiar in the context of other renewables nationwide.

However, given its academic and innovation resources, educated workforce and financial services assets, Massachusetts should be able to overcome these barriers, perhaps clearing the way for commercial-scale wave power exploitation.

Tidal energy, like wave power, has significant potential in the United States but it has hardly begun to be tapped. New York, however, stands out as having a multi-phase tidal power project in development, one of them being America’s first tidal project. Verdant Power has had a test project running in New York’s East River since 2007.

A submerged tidal turbine, dubbed a free-flow kinetic hydropower system by Verdant and first installed in the River in 2006, was the first of 6 turbines placed in an array over the subsequent two years as part of the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) project.

This demonstration phase established the ability of the system, with its 5 m (~16.4 ft) diameter rotors, to consistently supply power to the grid, delivering 70 MWh of energy to two end users in 9000 hours of turbine operation.

The RITE installation stands as the world’s first grid-connected array of tidal turbines. Plans exist for building a 30 MW array of tidal turbines in a third project phase that would deliver generated power commercially to local customers. Project partners include the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the National Grid.

Verdant Power is also turbine supplier under the Cornwall Ontario River Energy (CORE) project that will harness flow in the St Lawrence River to generate up to 15 MW of power locally. While this river project is in Canada, it does help establish Verdant as a leading North American tidal generation player. More projects are planned in Canada and in California.

Verdant is also assessing tidal resources in the UK, South America, China and India. The company describes its turbines as simple and scalable and claims they have minimal environmental impact. It says its turbines are appropriate for harnessing not only tides but also the steadier currents found in rivers. Its machines are of the horizontal axis, three-blade rotor form that has come to dominate the wind energy industry; it will be interesting to see whether in the long term this form, with a truncated rotor to allow for the much greater density of water than air, proves just as optimum for capturing tidal energy.

In 2008 Verdant was awarded DoE funding to develop its system under the Department’s Advanced Water Power program. It is working with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Minnesota’s St Anthony Falls Laboratory.

On the Pacific side, in Washington State, the second of the USA’s two active tidal programs is in progress. During late September, a crew controlling remotely operated vehicles from an anchored barge was investigating the seabed off Whidbey Island in Puget Sound to establish its suitability for supporting turbines made by Ireland’s OpenHydro, which would be deployed on large flat tripod mounts resting on the seabed.

Meanwhile, officials from Snohomish County, within which the scheme is located, were striving to secure the necessary licenses and funding approvals whilst also drawing up plans for the demonstration-scale project, which they expect to be implemented in 2012. The DoE is granting US$10m for the scheme, enough to cover about two thirds of its estimated cost.

Public Utility District Commissioner Tom Olsen, comments: “We’re excited to be leading the way in research of this innovative technology source to meet the needs of the fastest growing areas of the Pacific Northwest.”

Results from the project, in which slow-turning, 10 m (~32.8 ft) diameter turbines will be connected to the local power grid, will influence whether tidal flows in other parts of Puget Sound, such as Deception Island, will similarly be harnessed. Proponents of other schemes include the US Navy, which is planning a one-year research study in the Sound also using Verdant Power technology.

Some of the country’s – indeed the world’s – strongest tides are to be found on the East Coast, up around New England. The Atlantic coast of the state of Maine is at the southern end of the Bay of Fundy where the tidal range can reach a startling 50 ft in the north near New Brunswick in Canada, while being a hardly modest 11-20 ft (depending on location) further south on the US side of the border.

It is no surprise that several turbine producers are seeking to tap into this tidal powerhouse. OpenHydro, for one, is active on the Canadian side working with Nova Scotia Power and the Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy.

Maine has numerous bays and islands within its rocky 230-mile coastline to concentrate tidal forces. Off the town of Eastport, where the tidal range is up to 19 ft, flows in the Western Passage of Passamaquoddy Bay become particularly strong.

This is where the Ocean Renewable Power Company is planning a trial project with submerged turbines. President and CEO Chris Sauer, says: “It’s critical to prove through this testing that our turbine generator is commercially viable. It has the potential to catapult us to the front of the tidal energy industry while putting Maine on the world map as far as tidal energy is concerned.”

Maine is already New England’s largest producer of renewable energy as a whole, and hopes that exploiting its tidal power will help it strengthen this position still further. It is noted for its renewable energy supportive policies and incentives including eased permitting requirements, an ambitious RPS, tax and production incentives, net metering and sustained R&D.

It seems that, with the mainly trial and demonstration phase projects outlined above, we could be witnessing the start of a new strand of renewables industry in the United States. The natural resources are certainly there. Wave power alone has the potential to supply 30 GW of electricity, according to DoE. Tidal power, while concentrated in certain areas and variable (though reliable and predictable) is also a major resource.

In a study encompassing five states, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) estimates there to be 300 MW of technically feasible tidal potential, as well as a theoretical potential of 3800 MW in Alaska. Energy could also be extracted from the steady flows of rivers and offshore currents such as the Gulf Stream and Florida Current. Energy consultancy Navigant Consulting Inc estimates that untapped hydropower resources in the US, both inland and ocean, total more than 400 GW – though this includes conventional hydro-electric power.

Now that carbon reduction is a mainstream issue and with the Obama Administration broadly in favor of renewables, the omens are better than for some time. With each new setback for fossil fuels – witness, for instance, the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill – political will is growing behind renewables and investment is following, not least via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus package, a portion of which is earmarked for renewables.

Nonetheless, the waters are still choppy. At this embryonic stage, wind and tidal enterprise is especially vulnerable. A lack of long-term policy continuity that has plagued renewable enterprise to date leaves investors and companies uncertain of future financial returns. A situation where tax and other incentives can be voted in one year, and cut off the next, hardly encourages investor confidence.

If there was ever any doubt that renewable industries need seed-funding support in order to become established, energy consultancy Navigant Consulting’s finding that investment in wind fell by 73-93% in years when the Federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) was allowed to expire should dispel it.

An ‘on-off’ support regime makes entrepreneurs cautious, retards momentum and inhibits supply chain formation. A related issue is that those renewable technologies that have become mainstream tend to attract most of the available investment, leaving little for emerging technologies viewed as higher risk.

Then there are the bureaucratic and practical obstacles project-initiators have to negotiate before they can start implementing their schemes.

Obtaining the necessary licenses can be a protracted affair requiring impact studies related to the environment, wildlife, infrastructure and the effect on local populations.

In Oregon, for instance, Ocean Power Technologies was given the thumbs up for its project by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) only after an extensive permitting process. There are two levels of bureaucracy to be satisfied: One at the Federal level and the other in the state where the project will be implemented. States vary in their degrees of support, permission requirements and general attitude to renewables.

Costs in the early stages of technology implementation are invariably high. Navigant has projected installed costs of US$2500/kW for wave power and US$3000/kW for tidal in-stream energy conversion (TISEC), based on EPRI cost estimates. Only emerging experience will determine how accurate these estimates are, and much remains uncertain.

Other ‘unknowns’ include the practicalities and costs of providing the necessary plant-to-shore connection infrastructure in the arduous marine environment, and the costs of operating and maintaining wave and tidal plants once they are up and running. Fear of the unknown is aggravated by the fraught financial times we live in.

But wave and tidal energy proponents can take heart from the fact that the wind and solar communities have succeeded in building momentum despite similar hindrances. Moreover, a number of initiatives are aimed at making life easier for project initiators.

For example, in 2009 the Maine authorities and the FERC signed an agreement to streamline Federal and state licensing processes for offshore ocean energy and wind projects – the first agreement of its kind on the East Coast. This acceleration of often slow and arduous processes should shorten times from project conception to implementation, thereby reducing risk and cost for pioneer organizations.

As in Europe, environmental concerns loom large. Environmentalists object to plants over concerns about scenic coastlines and local ecosystems.

Coastal states are understandably eager to protect fishing interests and fear the effect turbines and other systems might have on sea creatures. EPRI is investigating the impact of emerging technologies, plus existing hydro-electric power, through its Waterpower program, with fish passage protection being a particular focus. Its R&D program for 2011 includes continued development of the Alden fish-friendly turbine which, although seen primarily as a potential solution for hydro-electric schemes where dams impede fish passage, could conceivably have application in tidal arrays as well.

Overall, the situation is finely balanced. Time will tell whether US wave and tidal power will grow from their present minnow status to the mighty beast the potential suggests, or whether they will remain a tiny creature occupying a niche role. Another question is how they will relate to other waterpower resources, including ocean thermal and conventional hydro-electric.

Henceforth, now that a few pioneers are offering a glimpse of a new and promising direction for waterpower, progress will be a matter of will, politics and investment. Awareness that the UK and other parts of Europe are snatching a lead in this infant renewables sector could stimulate US policymakers to rustle up all three, and the world knows that the US can scale up rapidly when determined to do so.

Corvallis-based M3 Wave Energy Systems debuted its power-generating technology last week at the Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory at Oregon State University.

As testing wrapped up for the company’s undersea device, the demo marked a new push for funding as M3 looks to an in-ocean pilot. The Oregon company is also making note of an uncertain future as opportunities in wave energy still appear most favorable abroad.

M3 Wave is comprised of principals Mike Morrow, Mike Delos-Reyes, and Mike Miller. All three are Oregonians committed to wave energy development off the state’s famous coast.

Their so-called DMP device technology — it stands for Delos-Reyes Morrow Pressure device — is cleverly simple. Unlike floating buoys or Aquamarine Power’s signature “Oyster” design, both proposed in Oregon, M3′S design doesn’t pierce the surface of the ocean or impact coastal views. Instead, it sits on the ocean floor at depths between 50 and 100 feet. It generates power by responding to water pressure from the waves above, which alternately inflate and deflate a pair of airbags that turn a central turbine to generate power.

The design was conceived by Morrow and Delos-Reyes 20 years ago. As OSU students, they built the first prototype with Dairy Queen spoons, an old Sony Walkman processor and tough plastic bags from the school cafeteria.

The current prototype is one sixth of the final scale, but DMP technology purports a relatively small footprint and the ability to interlock units, fitting as many as 20 to 50 devices in the same space of a buoy footprint, according to Delos-Reyes.

It was designed with Oregonians in mind, and will likely cull some favor with a coastal community that’s pushed, at least in planning talks, to preserve views of the Pacific Ocean as wave tech deploys here. M3 officials point out that DMP is a submerged technology, safe from storms and wind impacts, and has the potential to limit conflicts with fisherman and marine life. That the device’s output can be throttled on the fly, and it contains no hydraulic fluids, are also among selling points.

But recent upsets in a much discussed but slow to emerge market in Oregon have caused M3 to consider a leap from the state.

With a planning process still underway to define where ocean energy best fits of Oregon’s coast, and no clear direction for where wave energy can deploy in the short term, Aquamarine Power left Oregon last month, citing regulatory uncertainty and a need to concentrate efforts elsewhere, at least temporarily.

The shift also comes as European nations adopted a position paper on ocean energy — supported by Belgium, Denmark, Norway, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom — a sign that ocean energy may prove a faster moving market overseas and could unlock funding tied to Europe’s carbon reduction goals.

“We are looking for private funding, of course,” said Morrow. “Being lifelong Oregonians with this technology, we don’t want to go elsewhere, but we have to go where the funding is going to go.”

So far funding for M3’s work has been here. A $240,000 grant from the Department of Energy, matched by $60,000 from the Oregon Wave Energy Trust, covered development of the company’s current prototype. A second grant from OWET paid to test at OSU. With data in hand, a proven concept, and no unforeseen hurdles, the next move for M3 is a full scale device and an ocean pilot.

Ideally, Morrow said the company would manufacture and assemble its products here, and has talked with Vigor Industrial and Oregon Iron Works about possible partnerships. He said M3 would like to partner with utilities to sell the device rather than act as an energy developer.

But sales will be in limbo before an ocean test, and lack of a clear path for deploying wave tech in Oregon stands in the way. As legislation and regulation define which devices land in the ocean here, and how, those rules have “the ability to tell investors that we want to do things that can go in the water in Oregon,” said Morrow, and create certainty.

Without guidelines, the company may first look elsewhere for opportunity.