Lindsey O'Brien//June 20, 2012//
After a year of extra testing on its power-generating buoy, has shipped the final component of its 200-ton PowerBuoy to Oregon for final assembly.
is finishing its work on the buoy, which was initially scheduled to be launched last summer and is slated for deployment off the coast of Reedsport later this summer.
OPT, which develops technology to turn wave activity into electricity, recently completed the final testing of a key power device for the second-generation product.
Now that it has received the power device, Oregon Ironworks can finish its nearly $4 million contract with OPT. The Clackamas-based company will then send the vertical spar to Portland for final assembly at Vigor Marine, a ship building and repair company.
From there, Vigor Marine will launch the 150-kilowatt PowerBuoy into the water and tow it to Reedsport, where Northwest Underwater Construction and other local companies will connect it to the mooring system.
Then, after several years of permitting, planning, testing and assembly work, full-scale power generation testing will begin.
The buoy is the first of 10 in OPT’s planned, utility-scale wave park.