Marine Energy

DOE announces $15.5 million to advance tidal and river current energy

DOE announces $15.5 million to advance tidal and river current energy
(Photo by Joseph Barrientos on Unsplash)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced a total of $15.5 million in awards to advance tidal and river current energy in the U.S.

First, two projects will receive a combined $6 million to develop a tidal energy research, development and demonstration pilot site in the U.S. Second, a community-led river current energy research and development project was selected to receive $9.5 million.

This funding, supported by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, encourages U.S. leadership in tidal and current energy development, supporting the Biden-Harris Administration’s goals to help communities meet their energy priorities and develop the marine energy sector’s supply chain and workforce, according to a release.

“With marine energy, we can sustainably harnesses the power of the ocean and rivers, providing rural and remote communities with clean reliable power,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “The projects … are part of the largest investment by the federal government to advance the technology to capture energy from ocean tides and river currents, while helping decarbonize hard-to-reach coastal communities across the country and increasing their energy independence and resilience by increasing use of locally generated energy.”

Tidal energy pilot site

This investment reflects that the industry is now at a phase in development that requires moving from single device testing to array testing with several devices grouped together, DOE said. It marks the first of five phases in a $35 million total investment to support the development and installation of one or more tidal energy devices that can be transitioned to a commercial project.

Selected projects are:

A team led by Orcas Power and Light Cooperative (OPALCO) in Eastsound, Wash., proposes to deploy a tidal energy turbine in Rosario Strait in the San Juan Islands, Washington. The device is expected to have a capacity of about 2 MW. OPALCO aims to develop a pilot tidal power program to provide a reliable and resilient local power supply for San Juan Islanders.

A team led by ORPC in Portland, Maine, aims to deploy two tidal energy devices in the Cook Inlet in Alaska off the coast of East Foreland on the Kenai Peninsula. The devices are expected to be able to provide a capacity of 1 MW to 5 MW. The team aims to demonstrate the feasibility of tidal energy projects in Cook Inlet, which is the largest tidal energy resource in the U.S.

During the first phase, expected to last one year, these two projects will evaluate proposed sites and create plans for licensing, environmental monitoring, site health and safety, site commercialization, stakeholder engagement, community benefits, supply chain procurement, and technology selection and qualification. This phase will culminate in submitting the necessary license and/or permit applications to regulators. At the conclusion of the first phase, DOE will select one project to proceed through the remaining four phases and receive up to an additional $29 million, concluding with testing and operation of the tidal energy device(s).

Community-led river current research

This project aims to balance community energy priorities and technology innovation. This $9.5 million investment will help accelerate the development of current energy technologies and promote resilience and economic development in Yukon River and Alaska Native communities. Many communities on the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers are powered by local microgrids, where the river current potential resource is an order of magnitude greater than average electrical loads.

The selected project is led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Alaska Center for Energy and Power, which plans to develop a replicable, community-led current energy research and development project in the Yukon River at Galena, Alaska. The primary goal is to identify and develop a technology appropriate for the community. This project will help remove barriers to the development of river-based hydrokinetic energy projects in Alaska’s more than 90 communities with microgrids on or near rivers.

These projects were selected as part of the Water Power Technologies Office’s U.S. Tidal Energy Advancement funding opportunity.