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Three potential Southcentral tidal energy projects being pursued
Alan Bailey for Petroleum News
Three companies are in the process of pursuing projects that may make use of powerful tidal currents in the Cook Inlet and Turnagain Arm to generate tidal electrical power. Ocean Renewable Power Co. is planning a hydropower system to be installed in the Cook Inlet, offshore the East Foreland of the Kenai Peninsula. Littoral Power Systems wants to install hydropower technology on one or more of four decommissioned gas production platforms in the Cook Inlet. And Tidal Energy Corp. wants to install tidal power turbines in Turnagain Arm.
The ORPC project ORPC is the furthest ahead in progressing these tidal power concepts. In recent years the company successfully implemented a hydrokinetic power system in the Kvichak River, for supplying power to the village of Igiugig, near the western end of Lake Iliamna in southern Alaska. The system involves two underwater turbine generators with helical shaped turbine blades. The company seeks to install similar technology at East Foreland.
The company has a preliminary permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the Cook Inlet project and on June 28 the company filed with FERC its annual report on the project. According to the report the company envisages installing a series of its proprietary turbines with a combined capacity of no more than 5 megawatts, with potential annual power generation of up to 13.5 gigawatt hours. A 1- to 5-mile submarine transmission cable would connect the generation site to land, while a 0.75-mile onshore transmission line would connect to a Homer Electric Association substation.
Turbine device under development The type of turbine device planned to be used is under development, with funding support from the U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office. A sub-scale version of the system has been successfully tested at the company's test site in Maine. The results of this testing are informing the design, and the deployment and retrieval techniques for a full-scale device, ORPC says.
A sub-scale turbine has also been tested in a tank system in Rome. ORPC's Irish branch is in the process or transporting the test device from Rome to Northern Ireland for demonstration field testing in an Irish lake -- testing is expected to take place during the fall of this year. The company says that its Irish branch is developing a larger scale device with funding support from the Strategic Energy Authority of Ireland.
Federal funding ORPC says that in February it received notice from the Department of Energy that its East Foreland project, named the American Tidal Energy Project, had been selected for a phase one funding award under a program to establish large-scale tidal and water current energy research. Phase one involves a competition between two projects, with one project subsequently being selected to move through to full project completion. ORPC anticipates phase one activities to span 10 months from June 2024 through March 2025, including the necessary design and analysis work for a draft pilot license application.
ORPC also reported that it is developing a comprehensive stakeholder engagement plan and has been working with the Kenai Peninsula Economic Development District to assemble an initial list of stakeholders in the project. The company also plans to assemble a team of regulators and resources that will be responsible for permitting and overseeing the development of the project site.
Littoral Power Systems seeking FERC permit Littoral Power Systems applied for a preliminary permit from FERC in June of last year and the agency has yet to issue a decision regarding the project. The company says that it envisages installing underwater hydrokinetic devices on one or more of the Baker, Shell-A, Shell-C and Dillon platforms. A 25-kilovolt subsea power transmission line would potentially be routed through an existing unused subsea pipeline, to deliver power to the north shore of the Kenai Peninsula. The company has executed a memorandum of understanding with Homer Electric Association, with HEA identifying several potential interconnect locations -- the most viable appears to be the Bernice Lake substation. A 2-to-3 mile onshore transmission line would be required.
The company says that the facility's average annual energy production could be around 5 to 6 gigawatt hours.
Evolving concept for Turnagain Arm Tidal Energy Corp has a preliminary FERC permit for studying the feasibility of a tidal power system in Turnagain Arm. The company's design ideas for the proposed system have evolved over the years into a concept involving fields of individual turbines, on the seafloor or surface based.
In its most recent annual report to FERC, filed on June 28, TEC said that, as with ORPC, it had applied to the DOE for funding support. But, while TEC's project did reach the final round of project selection, the project was not chosen as one of the two finalists. In its report TEC said that it thought that the DOE's main concern with the project was TEC's proposal to use a large proportion of the generated power to manufacture hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives. This proposal adds a layer of complexity to the project, TEC wrote.
In response, TEC is partnering with Idaho National Lab for a grant to study multi-energy markets for the optimal use of tidal energy in Alaska, TEC's report says.
--ALAN BAILEY
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