Tour & Demo of O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Lab
Presentation on Wave Energy Research at Oregon State & Wave Energy’s future on the Oregon Coast
Catering by OSU

Speaker: Dr. Ted Brekken, OSU Professor in Energy Systems

Thursday, May 17th, 2012
6:00-7:00 pm Tour & Demonstration of Wave Lab
7:00-08:00 pm Dinner & Presentation

Location:
O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Lab, 3550 SW Jefferson Way, Corvallis, OR 97331
http://wave.oregonstate.edu/Facilities/

Cost:
Eating: $10 students, $15 MTS members & family, $20 non-members.
Not eating: Free

RSVP to MTSOregon@gmail.com

(please notify if eating)

For more information:
Dr. Bekken: eecs.oregonstate.edu/people/brekken
MTS: www.mtsociety.org

More information.

A New Mexico wave energy company hopes to place a string of test wave energy buoys three miles west of Cape Arago this summer, just outside Oregon’s Territorial Sea.

‘It’s in the planning process,” said Phil Kithil, the founder and chief executive officer of Atmocean, a company that develops wave energy technology.

If Kithil receives the necessary permits, he plans to launch a string of three test buoys in mid-July. This test will last only three weeks, Kithil said. Then the buoys will be removed.

This will be the company’s first real-world test of Atmocean’s wave energy technology. Kithil plans to use the three-week test to measure hydraulic output, calculate electrical potential and refine mooring, deployment and retrieval techniques.

He will use pumps suspended between the buoys to measure the hydraulic output.

‘We would get real world ocean waves and how much energy we would capture and transmit from those,” Kithil said. ‘That is a key factor because wave tanks don’t properly imitate what the ocean actually does. Ocean waves vary moment to moment.”

The test buoys would occupy an area of the ocean about the size of a football field, Kithil said.

Kithil does not intend to establish a permanent wave energy park, with multiple buoys, off the Oregon Coast.

Instead, he hopes his technology will eventually be used to power remote island communities in Hawaii or the Caribbean, which currently rely on diesel to produce energy.

‘They’re importing diesel and burning diesel,” both of which generate substantial pollution, Kithil said. This also means the cost of power on an island is much higher than on the mainland, which is generally connected to a power grid with multiple power sources, he said.

From a business standpoint, it’s more practical to build a wave energy park near an energy-starved island than try to compete with Oregon’s hydroelectric power generated on the Columbia River, Kithil added.

For this summer’s test project, Kithil said he intends to hire a local company to build the buoy apparatuses.

Atmocean’s technology to harness the wave energy was invented to be a wave-driven ocean pump. It was originally designed to push cold water from the ocean floor to the surface during a hurricane in the hopes of reducing the hurricane’s intensity, according to the Atmocean website.

After Kithil transformed his invention to harness wave energy, he submitted it to General Electric’s Ecomagination Challenge in July 2010. It was ‘judged in the top 100 of over 4,000 entries,” according to the website. However, Atmocean did not receive funding for the technology.

Assuming there are no major glitches with July test, Kithil hopes to have his technology ready for market by 2013.

The Pacific Northwest-based group aiming to build the first grid-connected wave power test center in the United States is turning to Europe—where there’s a lot of experience on this sort of thing—for assistance.

The Oregon Wave Energy Trust (OWET) said today that it has selected the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) to provide a development plan for the envisioned Pacific Marine Energy Center (PMEC).
pacific marine testing center

The EMEC, in Orkney, Scotland, is the granddaddy of marine-power test centers. It has 14 full-scale grid-connected test berths and claims to be “home to some of the most innovative marine energy devices currently in development, with more full-scale devices having been tested at EMEC than at any other single site in the world.” Just last month Vattenfall snared the last available spot at the test center to test a Pelamis wave energy converter.

So clearly the Oregonians have a long way to go to catch up to the Europeans in developing the PMEC, which is being undertaken with the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC), a collaboration of Oregon State University and the University of Washington and one of only three federally sponsored ocean energy centers.

NNMREC is well along in a separate project to build a commercially available ocean test berth for marine power technologies off Yaquina Head, just north of Newport, Ore.; it’s expected to begin putting devices through their paces there this summer. “With this facility, NNMREC will have a full suite of testing capabilities to support the advancement of small-scale and full-scale devices supported by both land based and in-ocean testing facilities,” OWET said.

All of which is tremendous, OWET said—but the NNMREC facility won’t be grid connected, and if marine power is ever going to become a reality on the West Coast, it needs the grid connection. OWET says its goal is to power two Oregon communities with ocean energy by 2025.

As for the immediate future, OWET and NNMREC said project details and a timeline will be available when the contract with the EMEC is finalized.

The most immediate benefit will be improved tsunami inundation modeling for the Oregon coast, according to Chris Goldfinger, director of the Active Tectonics and Seafloor Mapping Laboratory at Oregon State University, who led much of the field work.

“Understanding the nature of Oregon’s Territorial Sea is critical to sustaining sport and commercial fisheries, coastal tourism, the future of wave energy, and a range of other ocean-derived ecosystem services valued by Oregonians,” Goldfinger said. “The most immediate focus, though, is the threat posed by a major tsunami.

“Knowing what lies beneath the surface of coastal waters will allow much more accurate predictions of how a tsunami will propagate as it comes ashore,” he added. “We’ve also found and mapped a number of unknown reefs and other new features we’re just starting to investigate, now that the processing work is done.”

The mapping project was a collaborative effort of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, David Evans and Associations, and Fugro. It was funded by NOAA and the Oregon Department of State Lands.

Goldfinger said the applications for the data are numerous. Scientists will be better able to match near-shore biological studies with undersea terrain; planners will be able to make better decisions on siting marine reserves and wave energy test beds; and commercial and recreational fishermen will be able to locate reefs, rockpiles and sandy-bottomed areas with greater efficiency.

“Prior to this, most people used nautical charts,” Goldfinger said. “They would provide the depth of the water, the distance off shore, and in some cases, a bit about the ocean floor – whether it might be mud, rock or sand. Through this project, we’ve been able to map more than half of Oregon’s state waters in a much more comprehensive way.”

Oregon’s Territorial Sea extends three nautical miles from the coast and comprises about 950 square nautical miles. The researchers have created numerous different habitat maps covering 55 percent of those waters, which show distinction between fine, medium and coarse sands; display rocky outcrops; and have contour lines, not unlike a terrestrial topographic map.

Some of the mapping was done aboard the Pacific Storm, an OSU ship operated by the university’s Marine Mammal Institute. The project also utilized commercial fishing boats during their off-season.

More information about the project, as well as the maps and data, are available at: http://activetectonics.coas.oregonstate.edu/state_waters.htm

What:
Oregon Wave Energy Trust and its partner, Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center have begun negotiations with a team led by the European Marine Energy Centre to provide a Development Plan for a grid connected ocean energy test facility; the Pacific Marine Energy Center.

Who:
Oregon Wave Energy Trust (OWET)
OWET – with members from fishing and environmental groups, industry and government – is a nonprofit public-private partnership funded by the Oregon Innovation Council since 2007. Its mission is to promote the responsible development of ocean energy in Oregon. We serve as a connector for all stakeholders involved in wave energy project development – from research and development to early stage community engagement, final deployment and energy generation and job creation – positioning Oregon as the North America leader in this nascent industry and delivering its full economic and environmental potential for the state. OWET’s goal is power two Oregon communities with ocean energy by 2025. www.oregonwave.org

Northwest National Marine Renewal Energy Center (NNMREC)
OSU is home to the NNMREC, one of only three federally sponsored ocean energy centers. NNMREC is a partnership between OSU and University of Washington and serves as an integrated, standardized test Center for US and international developers of wave and tidal energy, where OSU is focused on wave energy and UW is focused on tidal energy. NNMREC’s mission is to facilitate commercialization of marine energy technology, to inform regulatory and policy decisions, and to close key gaps in scientific understanding with a focus on student growth and development. OSU is a leader in interdisciplinary research and development of marine energy with world-class faculty and testing facilities. OSU currently provides testing of small-scale models in laboratory facilities to mid-scale prototypes in real ocean conditions and is now seeking to develop the full-scale, grid connected test capabilities. www. nnmrec.oregonstate.edu

Why:
The absence of standardized testing facilities has been identified as a key barrier to the development of the marine energy industry. Oregon is uniquely poised to fill the testing needs of the industry with its tremendous ocean energy resource, available infrastructure, technical expertise and political support. OWET and NNMREC are working together to develop a world class, grid connected ocean energy test facility that would be mutually beneficial to each other, the state of Oregon and the marine renewable energy industry.

More:
Project details and timeline will be available when the contract between EMEC and OWET/NNMREC is finalized. Information about partner organizations follows.

Pacific Marine Energy Center (PMEC) will be designed to demonstrate the viability of marine energy off the northwest coast of the US by providing a fully functional ocean test facility for prototype and commercial scale devices. At full build-out, PMEC will offer up to four test berths connected to the regional grid, each with the capacity of testing devices up to one megawatt in size. By offering numerous device-testing options in conjunction with transmission and grid interconnection infrastructure, PMEC will facilitate wave energy technologies’ progress from early-stage ocean testing through final demonstration for commercialization use. Specifically, the PMEC will meet the following key industry development needs:

• Site for testing devices with grid simulation capability;
• Ocean test berth for single device testing;
• Multiple-berth device testing (i.e., small arrays of 2 to 10 devices with combined output of 1-2MW each) for commercial scale devices and prototypes; and
• Opportunity for future potential expansion to commercial activity.

European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC)
Established in 2003, The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) Ltd is the first centre of its kind offering developers of wave and tidal energy converters independently accredited, purpose-built test facilities, in the world-renowned marine conditions of Orkney, Scotland. With 14 full-scale grid-connected test berths, it is home to some of the most innovative marine energy devices currently in development, with more full-scale devices having been tested at EMEC than at any other single site in the world. With this unrivalled knowledge and experience, the Centre is uniquely placed to provide consultancy on the design, set up and operation of marine energy test centres and has already formed alliances with Canada, China and Japan. EMEC also offers nursery testing facilities for smaller scale wave and tidal devices, independent verification of device performance, a wide range of consultancy and research services, and is at the forefront in the development of international standards for marine renewable energy. The Centre has been established with around £30 million of funding from the Scottish Government, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the Carbon Trust, the UK Government, Scottish Enterprise, the European Union and Orkney Islands Council. www.emec.org.uk

EMEC will partner with:

Aquatera
Aquatera are global specialists in ocean energy and have previously worked for OWET on a framework for the consideration of cumulative effects from wave energy and other developments in Oregon’s ocean waters. With a home base in Orkney, Scotland, next to EMEC, Aquatera have: completed over 200 ocean energy related projects; connected with 15 countries; helping over 20 ocean energy technology developers and 5 ocean energy project developers to try and achieve their goals. Aquatera has also worked with a number of communities, regions, agencies and governments to help them plan for, and map out pathways to, futures embracing sustainable ocean energy. In this project Aquatera will be using their unique RADMAPP tool to help inform and validate site selection and will also provide input about possible issues, impacts and opportunities based upon their operational experience from around the globe. www.aquatera.co.uk

Ecology and Environment
Ecology and Environment, Inc. (E & E) has extensive experience conducting siting, environmental analyses, and permitting for offshore energy projects worldwide, including wind farms, wave energy converters, LNG terminals, deepwater ports, FPSOs, and subsea pipeline and electrical transmission cables. E & E has been actively engaged in the development of marine renew¬able energy policies and regulations by the DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission since the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. We have been diligent in forging strong working relationships with these federal commenting agencies, Oregon state regulators, and local communities. Working from our Portland, Oregon office, we bring in-depth and proven experience in incorporating principles of marine spatial planning into permitting cable facilities and marine renewable energy projects with both federal and state agency jurisdiction. www.ene.com

As work is just beginning on Denmark’s newest and so far largest offshore wind farm off the island of Anholt, comes some hopefully good news for all fish in the area. A new report from the Danish wind-park Horns Rev 1, one of the world’s largest offshore wind farms, shows that offshore wind farms and fish can live together in harmony.

The 80 huge turbines at Horns Rev 1 are located just off Denmark’s westernmost point and will be celebrating their tenth birthday in just over a year’s time. Like other offshore wind farms, it is located in relatively shallow water, no more than 20 meters deep, and thus in an area which is typically teeming with fish.

Even before the park was built, researchers from DTU Aqua, National Institute of Aquatic Resources in Denmark, sailed out to conduct a survey of fish life in the area. Biologists then compared the data gathered at that time with the situation in the area seven years after the wind turbine blades began to turn.

“Our study showed that the turbines have not adversely affected fish life in the area,” says biologist Claus Stenberg from DTU Aqua.

Several new species

Offshore turbines at Horns Rev are sunk deep into the seabed and surrounded by a rim of large piles of stones, which prevents the sea currents eroding deep trenches in the sand around the turbines. The study suggests that these stone structures also act as artificial reefs, providing enhanced conditions for fish, with an abundant supply of food and shelter from the current, and attracts fish which like a rocky sea bottom. As such, the turbines have created habitats for a number of new species in the area.

“Species such as the goldsinny-wrasse, eelpout and lumpfish which like reef environments have established themselves on the new reefs in the area – the closer we came to each turbine foundation, the more species we found,” says Claus Stenberg.

Fish living at the bottom of the sea thriving

The researchers were keen to see how the fish species that live on the large fine-grained sand banks that the mills were constructed on would be affected – species that include, for example, the sand eel, which is one of the most important fish for the Danish fishing industry.

“The study shows that wind farms have not been a threat nor of particular benefit to the sand eel. The sand eel is dependent on the fine sand, in which it buries, to live, and the mills did not affect either the sand grain size on the bottom nor had any impact on the number of sand eels,” the DTU Aqua biologist concludes.

The study is the first to examine the effects of a Danish wind farm on fish life. However, researchers do not expect that the results will necessarily be replicated in the other 11 wind farms located in Danish waters.

“Horns Rev is situated in an extremely tough environment with strong wave action, which means for example that seaweed forests, together with the small fish that live in them, cannot establish themselves. We would therefore expect the positive reef effects to be even greater still in a park located for example in the more sheltered Kattegat,” says the DTU Aqua scientist.

Since the Horns Rev 1 was built, the area has been closed to all fishing activities. As a result, the park has become a kind of mini protected area, although it has been too small to have had any significantly positive effects on local fish stocks.

“Our studies suggest that the Horns Rev 1 is too small to function as a true marine protected area (MPA), because over their lifecycles the fish utilize a much greater area than just the wind farm. But presumably several parks located close to one another could have a combined positive effect on spawning and the survival of fish fry, as wind farms which are located downstream of each other can act as a kind of dispersion corridor for eggs and larvae,” says Claus Stenberg.

The study of wind farm Horns Rev 1’s effect on fish life was carried out as a joint project between DTU Aqua, Orbicon, DHI and NaturFocus. The project was led by Orbicon with DTU Aqua responsible for the practical and experimental analyses.

The report:

Leonhard, S.B., Stenberg, C. & Støttrup, J. (Eds.) 2011. Effect of the Horns Rev 1 Offshore Wind Farm on Fish Communities. Follow-up Seven Years after Construction. DTU Aqua, Orbicon, DHI, NaturFocus. Report commissioned by The Environmental Group through contract with Vattenfall Vindkraft A/S.
View Report

Summary
Oregon’s powerful waves, steady winds and strong renewable energy policies make the state a natural place for wave energy business. Healthy marine ecosystems, commercial and recreational fishing, marine transportation, tourism and the scenic beauty of the ocean are also important values to coastal communities. Encouraging development of a sustainable wave energy industry, while protecting existing coastal values presents a management challenge for the State of Oregon. It also presents an opportunity for a science-based discussion around how the ocean is currently used and how it can be used in the future to maximize public benefit.

Over the last four years, the State of Oregon, led by the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD), has worked to address this management challenge by updating its existing Territorial Sea Plan (TSP) to include wave energy siting considerations. The process has provided an important opportunity for a full accounting of existing uses within the territorial sea (state marine waters from 0-3 miles offshore). However, due to planning constraints of the TSP and Oregon’s existing Statewide Planning Goal 19 (which serves to protect existing ocean uses and resources), the update process has not provided an opportunity for a full discussion of present and future marine renewable energy values, opportunities and industry needs. Through interviews with Oregon’s planning and wave energy leadership, this article describes the Oregon TSP update process and discusses how that process has considered marine renewable energy (primarily wave energy), a new use of space in an already crowded sea. It also describes information products being used to map Oregon’s coastal resources, as well as other tools under development in Oregon to support siting decisions.

The Oregon Wave Energy Opportunity and Energy Policy
With more than 300 miles of coastline and a wave climate well suited to power production, Oregon has long been considered a prime U.S. location for wave energy development. The presence of deepwater ports, manufacturing industries and diffuse coastal electricity demand offer developers excellent siting opportunities.
Recognizing the opportunity to be a leader in an emerging international industry focusing on marine renewable energy, Oregon has adopted policies to encourage wave energy developers to test, construct and locate devices in Oregon waters. In 2007, the Oregon Innovation Council began to fund the Oregon Wave Energy Trust (OWET), a public-private partnership that connects stakeholders and carries out research in support of wave energy development. In the same year, the state enacted a Renewable Portfolio Standard that required 25% of power consumed in Oregon to be sourced from renewable resources and identified a preference for marine renewable energy development including wave energy.

In 2008, Oregon State University established the wave energy division of the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center, one of three US Department of Energy-sponsored research institutions that helps facilitate commercialization of wave energy devices.

The Oregon Territorial Sea Plan Part 5 and Statewide Planning Goal 19
The state’s policy actions encouraging marine renewable energy created early enthusiasm for development on the part of the wave energy industry. As developers began to explore sites and engage in permitting processes, concern started to grow in coastal communities about the size of wave energy installations and how fast development could occur. In response, Oregon signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) – the federal agency that licenses grid-connected pilot and commercial wave energy projects – in March 2008, to agree that all proposed wave energy projects are responsive to State environmental, economic and cultural concerns. The Governor then directed that Oregon’s existing TSP should be amended to guide the siting of ocean renewable energy facilities.

The Oregon TSP, created in 1994, guides ocean policy in state marine waters and provides important context and constraints for Oregon’s current marine renewable energy planning activities. In 2009, a new Part 5 of the TSP was approved to establish state governance of marine renewable energy projects. Part 5 describes the policies, standards and procedures that state agencies will use to approve new alternative energy developments within the territorial sea. These processes and procedures are additional to the existing FERC licensing process.

A second and final phase of Part 5 is ongoing and expected to be completed by mid-2012. The second phase provides an inventory of existing resources, which are then used to create a master map of the Territorial Sea. The State hopes that the map will identify where development of ocean energy may occur without interfering with existing marine resources and other uses. Until both phases are complete, no new commercial-scale wave energy permits will be issued in Oregon waters.

The development of Part 5 of the Territorial Sea Plan is framed by Oregon Statewide Planning Goal 19, (referred to as Goal 19), which guides all planning activities that could affect ocean resources. Paul Klarin is Oregon’s Department of Land Conservation and Development’s (DLCD) Marine Affairs Coordinator and staff lead for the TSP update process. According to Klarin, Goal 19 “provides three planning pillars that need to be addressed during the TSP update; broadly speaking, these are to protect 1) marine ecosystems, 2) areas important to fisheries, and 3) existing uses of the territorial sea.”

Mapping the Oregon Coast
The DLCD is using Goal 19 to drive the TSP mapping process, setting out to identify Goal 19 resources in the territorial sea and creating a map layer for each of the three planning pillars described above. “Those three sets of maps are combined to give us an understanding of the total areas that need to be protected from new development,” said Klarin.
Goal 19 does not provide specific guidance on measures necessary to “maintain and protect” ecosystems, fisheries and existing uses. The DLCD has indicated that it will take a conservative planning approach to identify Goal 19 resources first and then buffer them against marine renewable energy installations. At this point, planning options exclude marine renewable energy from Goal 19 protection areas.

The DLCD is using a web-based interactive mapping tool called MarineMap to assemble spatial data, show the location of existing Goal 19 resources and to inform stakeholder dialog around planning options. MarineMap does not describe potential compatibility of new uses with those that currently exist, or tradeoffs, if uses were co-located.

The Goal 19 data layers within MarineMap portray one side of the energy siting story: potential constraints to wave energy development. Energy opportunities, to date, have not been incorporated into the spatial analysis. The assumption of the DLCD is that once Goal 19 resources are identified, the space that remains could be considered for marine renewable energy development. In this way, the planning process will “back into” energy opportunities.

Marine renewable energy experts are concerned by this approach. According to Jason Busch, Executive Director of OWET: “The fact is wave energy can’t just go anywhere. Minimizing distance from deepwater ports, nearby transmission infrastructure, suitable bathymetry, an adequate wave climate and other factors make the difference between a viable site and one that is not feasible.”

The concern is that the space remaining after Goal 19 resources are identified and buffered will be minimal and may not be suitable for marine renewable energy. And while it is possible for some developers to move further offshore into federal waters, siting in the Territorial Sea to keep costs low is likely to be desirable for the first generation of projects. Furthermore, some wave devices are designed exclusively for nearshore and shallow depths; these devices do not have the option of moving offshore.

So, the question is: how does the State meet its obligation to protect Goal 19 resources, while ensuring adequate space in the right places to support marine renewable energy?

Consideration of Energy in the Planning Process
All parties acknowledge that it is difficult to plan for an industry that is brand new. Without considering a specific device in a specific location, the Oregon Wave Energy Trust has attempted to define compatibilities and what the industry needs most. “OWET has already mapped high priority areas and vetted the parameters with industry,” said Busch. He believes that planning for marine renewable energy should “begin with these high priority areas with a thought toward commercial development and try to find sites that strike a balance.”

While broadly supportive of wave energy development, the State’s existing directives are not explicit about how to strike that balance between uses. “What we lack,” said Klarin, “is any kind of decisive policy on the part of the State and Federal Government about how to site renewable energy in the ocean specifically and how to weigh it against other uses.”

Most energy facilities in Oregon are sited on a project-by-project basis, typically at the local (county) level. Very large wind generators, gas facilities, transmission lines and other major energy infrastructure trigger jurisdiction under the State’s Energy Facility Siting Council. This body issues a site certificate for an energy facility, if it can meet a series of standards that protect natural resources and public health and safety. If the facility does not meet one or more of the standards, the Council cannot issue a site certificate, unless the applicant can show that the overall public benefits of the facility outweigh potential damage to resources. This type of balancing requires an understanding of the benefits of all uses involved. Fishing, marine ecosystems and tourism provide benefits to the State and citizens of Oregon. Marine renewable energy has benefits in high technology job creation and new carbon free power that could displace other more polluting forms of energy. But current planning goals in Oregon do not provide the ability to consider carbon mitigation, economic development and other benefits of a marine renewable energy installation and weigh those against protection of existing uses and Goal 19 planning goals.

“A good MHK [marine hydrokinetic] test site is tremendously valuable for the State and it’s frustrating that we’re not able to weigh that value in the planning process and fully consider how it compares to other existing uses,” said Busch.

Other states and countries have also wrestled with the uncertain benefits and impacts of marine renewable energy in their own coastal and marine spatial planning processes. On the U.S. East Coast in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine, state plans have recognized that uncertainty requires some level of flexibility. For example, preserving ample space for multiple uses, where energy project applications could be considered on a site-by-site basis under existing law. Klarin and Busch both recognize this need for flexibility in the Oregon plan.

Busch would like to see consideration of the appropriate level of protection for Goal 19 resources, so that in some cases co-location with energy facilities could be an option. “What does it mean to protect Goal 19 resources?” he asks. “There are obvious no-go zones -MPAs [marine protected areas], previously permitted sites and cables, for example – but are there other Goal 19 areas that are a little more flexible where multiple uses might work and existing uses could be maintained? No one has actually analyzed what the impacts of renewable energy might be in some of these areas. The question is: are you willing to make a decision today about categorical exclusion of those sites?”

Klarin argues that multiple use zones where energy could be allowed make sense where Goal 19 resources are not as significant, but concedes that a “very large percentage of the territorial sea is going to be off-limits for marine renewable energy for one or more reasons.” And according to Klarin, many of the areas with overlapping Goal 19 resources are likely to be around deepwater port facilities that the marine renewable industry sees as prime locations for the first generation of projects. Recognizing the impact this could have on early industry adopters, Klarin sees “temporary use areas” as a potential option in certain Goal 19 areas. He explained that “temporary use areas could allow testing or deployment for sites with a small footprint, limited duration and an understanding that, after testing, equipment would be removed and commercial development would occur outside of the Goal 19 area.”

According to Busch, “temporary use areas might work but the details are important. If we could work out an arrangement where after demonstration, the developer could keep some critical infrastructure in place, like cables, and then move beyond the three mile line or to a site nearby for a larger build out, it could be acceptable.”

The TSP process is moving into a public phase in the beginning of 2012, with increased opportunity for discussion and participation from the renewable energy industry as well as other interested stakeholders. Workable solutions that meet both Goal 19 and state renewable energy targets will require the transparency of public process, as well as a better understanding of both the potential impacts and benefits of renewable energy technologies. As planning details are worked out over the next 10 months of public process and in the period following adoption of the updated TSP, the State and stakeholders will have a growing data set and tools available to support transparent decision making.

Decision Support Tools to Guide Planning and Siting in Oregon
In addition to providing spatial representation of uses and resources in the Territorial Sea to inform the planning process, the DLCD has selected MarineMap as its decision support tool for considering new energy permits. MarineMap contains dozens of spatial layers for Goal 19-eligible resources and uses. A one-square mile grid is applied to the Territorial Sea so that those varied spatial data layers are combined to provide a coarse filter representing the presence of all relevant Goal 19 resources and uses.

Virtually all spatial planning analyses today are built around the power of existing geographic information systems (GIS) applications. This is popular because these systems already exist and adapting them for planning tasks is straightforward. They are widely available and there is a large user base familiar with GIS systems. However, most available GIS systems do not handle multi-dimensional or incompatible data well; they do not account for uncertainties in the data; they do not handle temporal data well or at all and they do not help the user make value-balancing decisions.

Therefore, the scientific focus of marine renewable energy siting tools currently under development is to add to the spatial power of GIS with a processing engine that can handle the three missing components: complexity, uncertainty and time. In addition, the tools should support decision making once the scientific analysis is complete.

To address these issues, three federal agencies, U.S. Department of Energy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management are providing funding to a team comprised of Parametrix, Oregon State University, Robust Decisions and The Nature Conservancy to develop a tool using Bayesian logic, called a Bayesian Analysis of Spatial Siting, or BASS. BASS can integrate disparate data in a manner where the uncertainty of that data is known and the user can see risks associated with making decisions. The BASS tool is building on a previous OWET effort involving many of the same partners to assess cumulative effects, potential impacts and benefits of various marine renewable energy scenarios.

Klarin sees these analytical tools as particularly valuable post planning, to “zoom in on particular sites, do tradeoff analysis and inform adaptive management.” Busch had envisioned the tools as useful in the broader planning context. Parametrix acknowledges that the BASS project is in early development and will not be ready to apply to the Territorial Sea Planning process in the next few months. Because of the intensity of data inputs and complexity of the results, this tool is most applicable in small-scale or project-specific siting work, instead of territorial sea-wide planning.

Next Steps and Conclusions
After nearly four years of policy work, data collection, mapping and stakeholder meetings, Klarin sees the TSP update process as “in the home stretch.” He predicts that the mapping process will take up most of the first half of 2012, culminating in a series of recommendations, which will eventually reach the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission. The Commission will then consider those recommendations, as well as additional stakeholder input, before making a final decision to adopt a plan, likely in third quarter of 2012.

Planning is a public process and Klarin and Busch both see a great deal of value in that process. “The TSP update invokes a public discourse that engages a wide range of stakeholders and members of the general public in an informed discussion they’ve never had before about a particular use,” says Klarin.

Busch agrees: “What’s most important to me is at some level we have a rational, legitimate, scientifically based conversation about whether and how we move this industry forward in Oregon.”

As an emergent coastal interest, Klarin sees benefits to the marine renewable energy industry for having participated in the TSP update: “Having gone through the planning process, we’ve built the bridge between developers and stakeholders and encouraged discussions before they walk through the regulatory door. If you clear impediments in advance, the regulatory process is accelerated. What makes the regulatory process slower is conflict.”

Busch is cautiously optimistic about the outcome of the TSP process. The marine renewable energy industry, as the most recent industry in an already crowded sea, “will be held to the highest level of environmental scrutiny, as all user groups should be.” He sees value in a planning process that allows full consideration of all current and future uses of the territorial sea. “If that process works, it means that we brought everyone to the table, we sorted through all of the available information and we made decisions to the benefit of the State. If we can do that, I think that ocean energy has a fighting chance.”

The Oregon Wave Energy Trust (OWET) – with members from fishing and environmental groups, industry and government – is a non profit public-private partnership funded by the Oregon Innovation Council in 2007.

It aims to make Oregon the ‘North America leader’ in marine energy.

OWET’s goal is to have ocean wave energy producing 500 megawatts of power by 2025 – enough to power about 200,000 homes in the state.

The Aotearoa Wave and Tidal Energy Association (AWATEA) has been working steadily over the last year with OWET to establish a formal affiliate relationship between the two organizations.

The relationship will provide reciprocal membership and other benefits for members of each organization, as if they were members of both. OWET’s mission is to support the responsible development of wave energy in Oregon. OWET emphasizes a collaborative model to maintain the State’s competitive advantage and maximize the economic development potential of this emerging industry.

AWATEA’s mission is broadly similar: “to promote, aid and foster a vibrant and viable marine energy industry in New Zealand”.

Both organizations are internationally known for their work to promote marine energy on opposite sides of the Pacific. Now they will be able to co-operate on the development of marine energy in the Pacific, including collaborative work on R & D, industry development, supply chain growth, information exchange and advocacy to governments, NGOs, other national and international bodies.

The Affiliate relationship is the first step to establish this collaborative work. Like OWET, AWATEA is seeking similar collaborative relationships with marine energy industry trade associations in countries where marine energy technology developments are beginning to advance.

The United Kingdom’s interest in Oregon’s cleantech companies is longstanding, with companies including Green Lite Motors and Agilyx Corp. both exploring business opportunities through the trade group and Oregon small wind company Xzeres establishing a UK operation last year.

Through the Know-How program, the UK Trade & Investment group is looking to export some of the country’s cleantech expertise to Oregon and the rest of the West Coast.

The group identified the West Coast of North America as one of four regions in the world — along with India, China and Brazil — with policies in place to support cleantech innovation.

“I think what you’ll see is more companies from the UK looking at the market,” said Mike Rosenfeld, vice counsel and lead officer for clean technology with UK Trade & Investment.

For example, Rosenfeld said the trade group plans to bring a delegation of wave and tidal energy companies to Portland to attend the Wave Energy Trust’s annual conference.

“Wave and tidal energy is fairly early stage in Oregon, but the UK has been working the space for some time,” Rosenfeld said.

Under the Know-How program, the trade group plays matchmaker but leaves it up to individual companies to develop partnerships or establish a presence in specific markets.

Rosenfeld cited examples including UK-based energy consulting firm GL Garrad Hassan, which has an office in Portland and is working on projects in wind and wave energy, and renewable developer RES, which also has a Portland office. Rosenfeld said another UK environmental consulting firm, AquaTerra is also active in the market.

Scottish wave energy company Aquamarine Power had an office in Newport, but pulled out last year citing regulatory uncertainty for wave power in Oregon.

The purpose of this Notice is to provide potential applicants advance notice of a proposed upcoming FOA initially titled “In-Water Wave Energy Conversion (WEC) Device Testing Support.”  NO APPLICATIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED THROUGH THIS NOTICE.  Prospective applicants to the FOA should begin developing partnerships, formulating ideas, and gathering data in anticipation of the issuance of this FOA.  It is anticipated that this FOA will be posted to EERE Exchange in FY12.  Please do not respond or submit questions in response to this Notice of Intent.

On behalf of the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), the Wind and Water Power Program (WWPP) intends to issue a Funding Opportunity Announcement titled “In-Water Wave Energy Conversion (WEC) Device Testing Support.”

DOE intends to fund one industry-led project that will deploy a long-term (one year) in-water WEC device.  The device will be deployed at the Navy Wave Energy Test Site (WETS) facility in Kaneohe Bay on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu.

More information.