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.

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.

Marine power development in the United States is in its infancy, but the Oregon Wave Energy Trust (OWET) is nudging it toward taking a grown-up step.

In pursuit of its goal of mining the Pacific Ocean for energy, the public-private partnership is aiming to create a grid-connected ocean power test facility. The envisioned Pacific Marine Energy Center (PMEC) would give the United States something that Europe already has at the operating European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Scotland, and at Wave Hub, the four-plug socket in place off the Cornwall coast.
pacific marine testing center

The Oregonians have a long way to go to catch up to the Europeans. Right now, OWET is seeking a consultant to create a development plan for 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 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.

In its document soliciting consultant candidates, OWET said “the absence of standardized testing facilities has been identified as a key barrier to the development of the marine energy industry,” and argued that “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.”

The vision for the Pacific Marine Energy Center is for four berths that could test devices of up to 1 megawatt apiece, all connected to the regional grid. “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,” OWET said.
pacific marine energy center

OWET, which is dangling $100,000 for the development plan, didn’t hint at when it envisions the test center becoming a reality, but it did say that it will be developed in stages, and the description of those stages leaves the impression it will be a very long process.

“The initial stage would include site selection, design and installation of a single subsea transmission cable and shore-based infrastructure,” the OWET document reads. “This first cable could facilitate two 1MW devices. Because of the time required to obtain a FERC license, this first stage could include connecting the cable to a grid simulator, power analysis system and load dissipater for a full range of testing. The second stage would include the interconnection of the cable to the grid along with the necessary FERC license and additional shore-based infrastructure. The final stage would be to lay and interconnect a second cable in order to facilitate two additional 1MW devices or small arrays.”

The Oregon Wave Energy Trust is accepting applications for the second round of its Commercialization Grant Program, designed to help wave energy startups move their technology closer to being ocean-ready and nurture the industry in the state.

The trust, which is funded by the Oregon Innovation Council, has $200,000 to offer startups looking for help on their path toward commercialization.

Past recipients of the grants include Neptune Wave Power, Columbia Power Technologies LCC, M3 Wave Energy Systems and Ocean Power Technologies.

The commercialization program, launched by OWET last year, has been identified by the organization as its most important strategic initiative, said Jason Busch, the trust’s executive director.

“It’s all part of a single push to commercialize technologies,” Busch said. “Let’s get it out of your garage and give you a business plan.”

He expects the commercialization grants will be divided between three to five companies, depending on what startups apply and what their needs are.

He added that 2012 is expected to be an active year for wave energy in Oregon. The Territorial Sea Plan, a state rule-making process that will impact the wave energy industry, is expected to be completed this year.

Also, this summer the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center plans to open its in-ocean test site for wave energy technologies near Newport.

“It’s going to be a big year, and we need it,” Busch said.

Last year saw the departure of one wave energy company from the Oregon scene. Aquamarine Power pulled up stakes in November over uncertainty about the Territorial Sea Plan process.

At two public meetings Friday, North Coast fishing interests and environmental representatives voiced concerns that placing renewable energy devices, such as wind turbines or wave buoys within a 31⁄2-mile expanse of state-owned ocean, could disrupt fishing routes and wildlife habitat.

Those concerns aren’t new, but they are growing, as interest in the Oregon Policy Advisory Council’s Territorial Sea Plan continues to elicit anxiety within a fishing community that feels the state is beginning to place tighter restrictions on its activities.

The plan would essentially rezone the state’s territorial sea, setting recommendations and restrictions on the placement of renewable energy devices off of Oregon’s shoreline.

More than 100 people showed up at Friday’s two meetings of the Ocean Policy Advisory Council working group at Camp Rilea and Cannon Beach, representing a surge of interest in the state’s public planning process.

Interest will likely only grow with the state’s release Tuesday of five wish-list sites for the location of renewable energy devices, said Clatsop County Board of Commissioners Chairman Peter Huhtala.

“There will be a lot of interest in this,” he said.

The sites included in a submittal to the state from Ocean Power Technologies, a wave energy company, are Garibaldi/Tillamook, Newport/Toledo, Florence/Wendson, Gardner/Tahkenitch and Coos Bay/Hauser.

The development of wave energy in the Oregon territorial sea represents “sustainable and responsible management of the state’s natural resources,” the company wrote in its memo to the state.

Citing a 2009 study by Portland-based ECONorthwest, the company said construction of a wave-energy cluster of infrastructure could create $889 million in economic output, with $307 million of that money captured by the coastal economies. The construction activities could create more than 6,000 jobs, 2,700 of which would be on the coast. And the estimated tax revenue for the state would be $42 million, with $14 million of that going to coastal counties.

In Clatsop County, talks with renewable energy representatives concerning the potential placement of their devices have centered on offshore areas near Camp Rilea in Warrenton, Huhtala said.

At a private Thursday meeting, representatives from Oregon Wave Energy Trust met with fishing interests and officials from the Oregon Department of Military to discuss Camp Rilea’s plans.

The Oregon Military Department has adopted a net-zero initiative for its military installations, meaning they strive to only use only as much energy as they produce.

Wind or wave energy would go a long way in accomplishing that, at least at Camp Rilea. So far, the new sustainability push is being met primarily by the installation of solar power cells at other facilities.

Camp Rilea already has a test wind turbine, and there are plans for another. Those plans have been held up by a Federal Aviation Administration review of whether the height of the proposed windmill – rising more than 400 feet into the air – would disrupt flight patterns.

Officials say Camp Rilea is seriously considering wave energy, at least as a study area.

“In the context of a research project, it’s an appropriate use of military funds,” said Joanne Manson, a master planner for the military department.

From the county’s end, officials are adopting policies that will provide input and comment for when development is proposed in the territorial sea, said Hiller West, Clatsop County’s planning director.

He said that process – separate from the state’s outreach – will dictate what’s permissible in the county, though the county won’t have regulatory authority.

Concerns raised

The current work, which includes online maps featuring more than 100 data sets, is the second phase of a plan put in place in 2008 by Gov. Ted Kulongoski, following an executive order to amend Oregon’s Territorial Sea Plan to provide for development of wave energy.

In the early 1990s, Oregon adopted a territorial sea plan that was constructed around protecting three aspects of the state’s territorial sea – fisheries, areas of beneficial use and areas of ecological importance.

Through the state’s latest planning process, renewable energy development would become the fourth aspect of the plan, and perhaps the most controversial.

“We’re trying to fit this new use into the existing scheme we have,” said Paul Klarin, co-chairman of OPAC’s Territorial Sea Plan Working Group.

But there are still too many questions to satisfy critics, despite public outreach efforts and the state’s release of online interactive maps featuring more than 100 data sets.

“When we start putting stuff into the ocean, we don’t know how it’s going to affect the crab or the fish,” said Dennis Sturgell, a Hammond fisherman.

He said he’s worried that placing heavy industrial objects into the ocean could harm fish species – and his bottom line.

Some fishermen called for the state to reimburse for lost revenue if wave-energy devices impede their fishing lanes.

Tim Gannaway, another Clatsop County fisherman, said he was not impressed by the public outreach so far and doesn’t believe it will have significant bearing on the state’s final plan.

“All the regulations will put me out of business,” he said.

Fishermen aren’t the only ones who are worried.

Also in their corner is Nehalem resident Tom Bender, an architect with a pedigree in sustainable projects. In the early 1970s, he helped lead the development of one of the first regionally self-reliant demonstration houses.

He said the state’s still-nascent plan for placing renewable energy in the territorial sea amounts to a “giveaway of public resources for corporate profiteering.”

“None of this is driven by efficiency or viability,” Bender said. “It’s fed … by the way developers can get in, make a bunch of money and then vanish and let the dust settle as it may.”

The projects, he said, will do little to curb the real problem: energy consumption.

Representatives from the OPAC’s working group, however, say the state’s planning process has been comprehensive and exhaustive.

Caren Braby, a member of the working group, said the state has not found any part of the territorial sea that doesn’t have some ecological value.

What this means: “We won’t find anywhere in the ocean where nothing exists,” she said.

In the past, picturing alternative energy solutions might have conjured up images of a VW bus running on vegetable oil reclaimed from local fast food joints. Now, especially in the Northwest, new energy solutions are so much more.

Emerging and alternative energy solutions was just one of the ideas discussed at Portland’s Green Professionals Conference this week. Jason Busch of the Oregon Wave Energy Trust, Ross Macfarlane of Climate Solutions, and Alex Schay of Carbon Solutions NW gathered to explain how the market was expanding, with the Pacific Northwest as a natural hub for the industry.

Jason Busch said that Oregon was an emerging leader in the wave energy industry. Although solar might be a more well-known alternative energy, wave energy is on its way up. One half of the world’s population lives within 100 miles of the coast, so the opportunities are immense.

“Ocean energy is today where solar was 30-40 years ago,” Busch said.

He lamented the fact that solar and wind energies were mostly exported to other countries, and stressed that wave energy should be kept here. This could create jobs locally, such as how Oregon Power Technologies chose Oregon Iron Works to build its first PowerBuoy, which created approximately 30 union wave jobs for nine months. That was just to build one device—if Oregon embraced wave energy on a larger level, it could create many more jobs for years to come, he said.

Another emerging energy centered in the Northwest is the search for sustainable aviation fuels. Ross Macfarlane explained that aviation industry leaders were pushing for innovation in this field—unusual because alternative energies are usually a supply-side pushed innovation. The reasoning is mostly cost-driven—petroleum price swings are the biggest factor in airline costs.

Boeing, Alaska Airlines, and the region’s three largest airports joined together to form Sustainable Aviation Fuels Northwest to explore greener ways for airlines to operate.

Macfarlane said that it was important to set priorities for biofuels where they are most needed, like in aviation. Ground transportation has opportunities like electric cars and mass transit, “but it will be a long time before we have plug in planes.”

So why is the Northwest a hub for these aviation innovations, when there are larger airlines elsewhere? The answer is a combination of aviation leadership (Alaska Airlines is the first to have regularly scheduled biofuel flights) and the sheer amount of biostocks available here—including large ones like oil seeds, forest slash, solid waste and algae. These are supplemented by smaller feedstocks like hybrid poplar, for which ZeaChem recently got a $232 million loan guarantee.

Just as wave energy has the potential to create jobs in the Northwest, so does aviation biofuel production, especially in rural areas hit hard by the down logging industry. The first transatlantic flight to use biofuel used Northwest-grown fuel.

As fuel becomes more costly, and alternative fuels become more widely accepted, the Northwest is seen as uniquely situated to embrace this change, bringing jobs and new industries to the area. Busch said that his advice to any job seekers or students considering their area of study is that they should look into utilities, as the market is developing rapidly.

“The technologies of the future will be new and complex, and hopefully more and more green,” Busch said.

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.

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.