The next step in Oregon State University’s construction of a wave energy testing facility off the Oregon Coast near Newport will be visible this month.

Crews are working on shore and from a vessel anchored about a mile offshore from Driftwood Beach State Recreation Site south of Newport. The work is part of the construction of PacWave South, which will be the first pre-permitted, utility-scale, grid-connected wave energy test site in the United States.

Workers aboard a 265-foot vessel anchored just off the coast and crews at the recreation site will inspect and prepare cable conduits for next summer’s planned installation of power and data cables. To accommodate the work, portions of Driftwood Beach State Recreation Site parking lot will be closed. Work at the recreation site is expected to be completed by early September.

When completed, PacWave will offer wave energy developers the opportunity to try different technologies for harnessing the power of ocean waves and transmitting that energy to the local electrical grid. The test site will be on a sandy-bottomed stretch of the Pacific Ocean away from commercial and recreational fishing reefs about seven miles off the coast of Newport. The site will have four test berths that combined can accommodate up to 20 wave energy devices at one time.

Power and data cables buried below the seafloor will connect the ocean test site to a shoreside facility in Seal Rock, south of Newport. Louisiana-based industrial electrical services contractor R.T. Casey is overseeing the procurement, construction and installation of the cables for PacWave. The 12-mile-long cables are being manufactured in Norway by Paris-based firm Nexans. They are expected to be installed next summer.

OSU has pursued development of a wave energy test facility for more than a decade. The project is supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, the state of Oregon and other public and private entities. Oregon State’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences is managing the construction and operation of the more than $80 million facility.

The post Visible work on wave energy testing facility under way appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

PORTLAND (AP) — Federal energy regulators have given Oregon State University initial approval for a groundbreaking wave energy testing facility off the coast.

The PacWave South project is designed to facilitate and accelerate the development of wave energy technology, which harnesses the motion of the ocean to generate electricity, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

Oregon is considered to have a high potential for wave energy generation – higher by coastal area than Washington or California.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a license to the project on Monday, but another review period must pass before OSU gets final approval.

“It’s huge. It’s the first license of its type to be issued in the United States,” said OSU’s Burke Hales, chief scientist on the project.

Oregon State’s project would offer a pre-permitted area offshore of Newport, Oregon, where wave energy developers could anchor and plug in their devices to the grid.

The array would spread over about 2 square miles of ocean and include four testing “berths” with undersea cables to carry energy produced back to shore near Driftwood Beach State Recreation Site. The energy developers would pay Oregon State University for use of the testing facility.

“We hope to be moving this summer with groundbreaking for building our shoreside facility,” Burke said, adding that the underground and under-ocean boring work needed to run the transmission lines offshore would start this year as well.

The goal is to install the offshore components of the test facility in 2022.
—
This story has been updated to correct the size of the area where wave energy developers could anchor and plug in their devices to the grid. It would be 2 square miles, not 8 square miles.

The post Regulators OK wave energy testing project off Oregon coast appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Oregon State University and its Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center recently announced submission to the federal government of a plan outlining construction and operation of a wave energy test site off of the Oregon coastline.

The facility would be built seven miles west of Seal Rock in Lincoln County, and when complete it would be the first full-scale wave energy test site in the U.S. connected to the electrical grid.

OSU‘s 1,000-page test site plan details not only how the wave energy site would be built and run, but also measures that would be taken to minimize potential environmental impacts to local marine fisheries and other resources. The plan is part of the university’s draft license application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an independent agency that regulates electricity transmission.

Work that went into creating the project plan was paid for largely with dollars from a $35 million U.S. Department of Energy grant received by the university in December 2016. The state of Oregon also is backing the project.

Wave energy converters are among the devices the Energy Department is researching to generate energy from the ocean. Other examples include tidal and current energy converters as well as ocean thermal energy conversion technologies. These devices are collectively referred to as MHK technologies.

If the university’s application is successful and the wave energy test site becomes operational, likely sometime in 2021, it is designed to have a maximum output of 20 megawatts of electricity under optimal conditions. That is enough power for roughly 20,000 homes.

Burke Hales is an Oregon State University professor and the chief scientist for the wave energy project, which began more than five years ago with the work of a Newport-area site selection team. Despite the relatively mature technology at the heart of wave energy, construction of such facilities for permanent use has, to date, been cost-prohibitive, he said.

“That’s the big issue – money, money, money,” Hales said.

Since those early days, OSU has gone through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s alternative licensing process, which requires collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders.

Hales said the test site would be a proving ground for companies involved in manufacturing wave energy conversion devices. Currently, several are available in the marketplace.

Industry sources show these devices range in design from point absorbers, which capture wave motion, to attenuators, which resemble articulated snakes and are designed to respond to wave curvature. There also are devices that are open to the ocean on the bottom and use oscillating water columns to drive a turbine and generate power, and there are hybrid devices using one or more of these techniques.

“It will allow the developers to come to us to test their devices in a full electrical grid state,” Hales said. “We’re building the infrastructure that allows the people who build the energy devices to connect to the grid. Regardless of how the developers choose to produce wave energy, it doesn’t matter; we’re just providing the infrastructure.”

According to Department of Energy documentation, the test site would be six nautical miles west of Seal Rock in Lincoln County in waters ranging from 213 to 256 feet deep. It would be around two square nautical miles in surface area.

When finished, the site would hold four test berths, each capable of operating either an individual device or an array of devices – up to 20.

Power generated at the site would be transmitted to facilities onshore via four undersea cables that would be buried and run through conduits. Expectations are that the site would have a 25-year life span.

As for construction, Hales said it would actually be fairly simple.

A set of commercial buildings would be built onshore at the point where undersea electric cables connect to the wave energy devices at the shoreline.

Then there is the seabed excavation and boring required to emplace the electric cables beneath the sea floor. Only a handful of contractors across the globe carry out this type of heavy work, Hales said.

OSU is working with 3U Technologies, a Texas-based firm offering design and engineering in many areas, including submarine cables, to find a contractor for the project. As part of its support, the company is providing transmission cable design, delivery and installation planning, as well as cable route selection.

The company did not return calls seeking comment.

The total cost of construction would likely be around $15 million, Hales said.

“It’s actually really simple,” he said. “There (would be) sea cables that are buried in the sea floor. They (would) run about 20 kilometers into a set of buried splice vaults, which are like giant underground manholes.”

There, the four-inch-thick cables would feed up to 36,000 volts of raw power from the wave energy devices into the terrestrial conversion facility so it could be directed into the wider electric grid.

“We take what are likely to be complicated and diverse types of energy in terms of voltage, frequency and power,” Hales said, “and we convert that to a form that is compatible with the grid.”

OSU already has extensive experience in similar projects, having installed a series of undersea cables connecting ocean-based observation platforms with facilities onshore.

“People have been laying big undersea cables across the Oregon shelf for decades,” he said.

Two years’ worth of environmental studies have been carried out to date. Project managers like Hales now believe the wave energy concept can be carried out safely with little adverse effect on the marine ecosystem, including the potential impact of noise on marine wildlife.

“We’re taking a lot of those things into consideration,” Hales said. “But once the cable is in there, once it’s buried on the sea floor, there isn’t that much of an impact. So it’s really a matter of how much disruption will the construction cause? We think it’s pretty minor.”

At this point, FERC regulations require a 90-day period to allow submission of public comments. OSU will then be in position to submit a final application, likely late this year. If approval were given, university officials expect construction of the test site infrastructure would begin in fall 2019, Hales said.

The post OSU shares plan for harnessing wave energy appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

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.

The post Wave energy buoy set to launch off Oregon coast this summer appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Waves and tidal currents off the Oregon coast contain enough energy to generate more than 60 terawatt hours of electricity per year if developed to maximum potential, according to reports released by the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. uses approximately 4,000 terawatt hours of electricity per year.

The DOE today released its assessments of wave energy resources and tidal streams across the U.S., touting the reports as the most rigorous analyses of the country’s ocean energy in existence.

Oregon is working through a complicated process to amend its in order to accommodate more renewable energy development. The spatial planning process, which started back in 2008, will locate areas where renewable energy development may be sited within Oregon’s territorial waters.

A working group since 2008 has collected data and consulted with communities about ocean energy development to make recommendations for how the Territorial Sea Plan should account for siting. The Territorial Sea Plan Working Group will hold its next meeting Jan. 20 in Newport.

Nationwide, 6 percent of the country’s electricity is already generated by hydropower resources. The DOE estimates that hydropower could produce approximately one third of the country’s electricity needs if it was developed to the maximum theoretical level. By 2030, water power may contain enough energy to provide 15 percent of the nation’s electricity.

In addition to the wave and tidal resource assessments, DOE plans to release additional resource assessments for ocean current, ocean thermal gradients and new hydropower resources in 2012.

The post Oregon’s wave energy capacity detailed in new report appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Oregon has drawn a great deal of interest from burgeoning wave energy companies, but for at least one, the development of sea-ready technology outpaced the state’s planning process.

Aquamarine Power, a Scottish wave energy company, closed its one-person Newport office last month, citing the intensive, ongoing planning process that Oregon undertook in 2008. But that process may ultimately lead to more wave energy investment in the future, according to others in the industry.

“We’re taking major question marks off the table,” said Onno Husing, executive director of the Oregon Coastal Zone Management Association – a nonprofit that serves local elected officials on the Oregon coast. “Many of us firmly believe – and many companies have communicated to us – that the plan will substantially enhance the investment climate.”

After a number of wave energy companies in 2007 submitted permit applications to develop facilities within fishing areas off the Oregon coast, then-Gov. Ted Kulongoski directed the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development to amend the state’s Territorial Sea Plan to include provisions for wave energy siting.

“The process is just lagging behind the desire to create this economic activity in Oregon,” said Aquamarine Power CEO Martin McAdam, whose company has networked in Oregon for several years. “Now we’re exploring a number of sites in Washington and California, and when Oregon is ready, we hope to come back.”

The groups charged with drawing up Oregon’s new plan – the Territorial Sea Plan Working Group and the Ocean Policy Advisory Council – on Dec. 15 and 16 will discuss draft maps that will determine where wave energy buoys may, and may not, be sited.

But Aquamarine Power, one of the few companies with proven, utility-scale, hydrokinetic technology, doesn’t want to maintain operations in Oregon until the state plan is final.

“It’s costing us time and money to be working in Oregon,” McAdam said. “We’re quite a small company, although with a big ambition for Oregon. The fact is we need to see not just a willingness on behalf of the state, but actually the proper mechanisms in place to allow people to secure part of the seabed for the development of wave power.”

The marine maps, which incorporate more than 100 data overlays and more than 1,000 square miles of the ocean, chart the existing locations of fisheries, recreational areas, wildlife refuges and other areas, and will designate places for ocean energy development.

After conducting more work sessions along the coast and collecting public comments in early 2012, OPAC will submit a plan by spring 2012, according to Paul Klarin, marine affairs coordinator at the DLCD.

“Everything is coming together,” he said.

But the planning process has been complicated, in part because of the variety of proposed technologies, each with its own “sweet spot” in terms of siting needs.

“Are there some people confused by how this will all come together in the wave energy industry? Oh yes, and I feel their pain,” Husing said. “But the planning process has only inconvenienced one company (Aquamarine Power). That’s the larger context for this story.”

Unlike many other hydrokinetic technologies, which optimize in deep water, Aquamarine Power’s “Oyster” technology is installed near the shore in water approximately 10 to 20 yards deep. The Oyster, which has been successfully deployed off the coast of Scotland but nowhere in the U.S., is a wave-powered pump that drives ocean water to an onshore hydroelectric turbine.

“If any device needs planning, it’s theirs,” Husing said.

The Oyster’s proximity to the shoreline has raised concerns from coastal citizens about obstructed viewsheds, according to Husing, and additional permitting would be required for the technology’s onshore components.

The only company to win Oregon’s approval so far is Ocean Power Technologies, which leased space off the coast of Reedsport before the state began its official planning process. Ten of the firm’s PowerBuoys are permitted for installation 2.5 miles offshore near Reedsport, although none has been deployed yet.

Even though Aquamarine Power will not maintain an Oregon office, McAdam said he will stay in contact with potential future partners such as Oregon Iron Works, American Bridge Co., Central Lincoln People’s Utility District and other utilities.

“We want to have a whole ecosystem for this new industry, and the U.S. is a very entrepreneurial and business friendly economy,” McAdam said. “Once the (planning process) rights itself, we’ll be back.”

The post State planning process too slow for one wave energy firm appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

New Jersey-based wave energy company is one step closer to dropping 10 power-generating buoys off the Oregon Coast near Reedsport.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality announced on Wednesday that it recommends granting Section 401 certification for what would be (Section 401 certification is required as part of the federal Clean Water Act to make sure federally approved activities meet water quality standards). by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and it is scheduled to go in the ocean next summer.

The first buoy is “just floating as a test buoy,” said Marilyn Fonseca with the DEQ water quality division, because of concerns surrounding the project. For instance, some fear that migrating gray whales may injure themselves on the buoys’ transmission lines.

The test buoy only requires a permit from the corps, but the other nine buoys for corps and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval to install them and connect them to the grid.

Each buoy should produce a maximum of 150 kilowatts, and the 10 buoys together should produce enough power for roughly 395 homes. The permit application will also allow the site to be expanded to produce up to 50 megawatts in the future.

A public forum will be held to discuss the proposed approval later this month. Public commentary can affect whether the buoys get the certification. A formal public comment period started Oct. 11 and continues through Nov. 14.

Where: Reedsport City Hall, 451 Winchester Ave., in Reedsport
When: 6 p.m., Oct. 25, 2011

The post Wave-energy buoys need certification before being plopped off Oregon Coast appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

today announced that Lockheed Martin will be a new partner on OPT’s proposed wave energy park near Reedsport. Headquartered in Maryland, Lockheed Martin will manage the design, manufacturing and systems integration for OPT’s .

The partnership with Lockheed Martin, a global technology company, follows OPT’s announcement in April touting the company’s local $6 million investment in four Oregon companies, including Oregon Iron Works, American Bridge Manufacturing, Cascade General and Sause Bros. Inc.

The first contract was in 2009 awarded to Oregon Iron Works, which completed fabrication of a PowerBuoy’s steel structure last year. Oregon Iron Works has been waiting for OPT to conduct further testing on the buoy before fulfilling its second contract with the company, which involves putting in all of the power generation equipment and controls.

“OPT wants to test that equipment to make sure that everything is working properly and run it through enough cycles so they can insure its integrity,” said David Gibson, renewable energy program manager for Oregon Iron Works.

Assembly, systems integration and land testing of the PowerBuoy is planned to occur over the next several months. It is intended to be the first of a proposed 10-buoy wave power station with a peak generating capacity of 1.5 mega watts.

“I hope that we’ll work on all 10,” Gibson said. “But as much as I would like that, we don’t have any contract to that effect.”

The post Lockheed Martin to join Oregon companies on Reedsport wave-energy park appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Oregon’s coastal waters continue to appeal to ocean energy developers, but they say progress is tied to state zoning, which may not be finalized until next summer.

The state in 2007 established Oregon Wave Energy Trust, a public-private nonprofit charged with growing the wave energy industry, but not one full-scale device has been placed into the ocean yet. However, technology developers are moving forward with projects.

Aquamarine Power USA announced Wednesday that it received a $100,000 matching grant from OWET to gather data on wave energy potential. But CEO Martin McAdam said the firm mostly is awaiting completion of Oregon’s Territorial Sea Plan, so that it can learn where it can place equipment.

“We have been working in Oregon for the last three years and would really like to see an opportunity to deploy a small number of our machines as quickly as possible,” McAdam said. “Oregon has been a vocal leader, saying ‘we want this industry here,’ but the Territorial Sea Plan is an essential part of whether we can actually work here.”

The Territorial Sea Plan provides regulations regarding resources and activities in the state-owned waters for the three nautical miles extending from the coastline. The plan is prepared by the Ocean Policy Advisory Council, a branch of the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development, in consultation with other government and local groups.

After a number of wave energy companies in 2007 submitted permit applications to develop facilities within fishing areas off the Oregon coast, then-Gov. Ted Kulongoski directed the DLCD to amend the Territorial Sea Plan to include provisions for wave energy siting.

A working group since 2008 has collected data and consulted with communities about ocean energy development to make recommendations for how the Territorial Sea Plan should account for siting.

“We’ve advised companies to wait until our planning process is done and we have designated sites for renewable energy development,” said Paul Klarin, co-chairman of the Territorial Sea Plan Working Group. “Some folks don’t feel like the process is going fast enough and want to have sites assigned sooner, but we do have time on our side. The industry is not ready to commercialize yet.”

But developers contend that commercialization is close, and that regulatory uncertainty is the real problem.

“We’re trying to figure out how to move from pre-commercial technology to actual commercial technology,” said Jason Busch, executive director of OWET. “And it’s very, very close. But until (a company) has a project in the water, the whole discussion of permitting is purely theoretical – you can come up with all kinds of problems or underestimate problems you didn’t see coming.”

McAdam said that installing equipment in the ocean is essential at this stage of development.

“We need to move now to see how these machines are operating and so people in the community can get more comfortable with the technology and the minimal impact it has on the environment,” he said.

Fishing groups, environmental activists and local government officials have actively engaged in the planning process by presenting concerns about potential disruptions caused by ocean energy development. The Territorial Sea Plan Working Group in June wrapped up a series of public information sessions, and it is analyzing more data this summer.

Klarin said the group will draft maps and planning options to share with the public in another round of work sessions beginning in October.

Industry representatives also will have be able to weigh in before the Land Conservation and Development Commission finally adopts maps into a territorial plan, which is projected to be finalized in early summer 2012.

Busch says the planning process should account for the ocean energy industry as much as other interests.

“We should not be looking at what is left over when you’re done protecting certain areas; there are some areas that are best for us,” he said. “We shouldn’t just be identifying places that are inappropriate for developing, but those that are appropriate as well; otherwise, we’ve wasted our time.”

McAdam said he is looking forward to seeing the initial state maps and plans because Aquamarine Power is planning to work with Oregon communities to install a couple of machines within the next three years. He emphasized that the company uses local products and contracts, which amounted to $6 million for a project in Scotland.

“Everything from buying nuts and bolts to hiring divers that we train to participate in construction, down to the photographer – we use local companies as much as we can,” he said.

The biggest project moving forward is from Ocean Power Technologies, which plans to deploy a 150-kilowatt test buoy approximately two and a half miles off the Oregon coastline near Reedsport. The test buoy represents the first of three phases expected to lead to development of a wave energy park with more than 100 buoys. Construction is still under way on the first buoy, though 10 would be permitted.

Oregon Iron Works is installing internal technology in the test buoy’s spar, but it needs other parts from Ocean Power Technologies to continue assembly, according to David Gibson, renewable energy program manager at Oregon Iron Works.

In the meantime, Oregon Iron Works is talking with other wave energy developers about prototypes or future projects, Gibson said.

The post Wave energy developers eager to learn Oregon’s plans for zoning appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

There’s never a dull moment in the energy sector around here – here are some of the projects that caught my eye this week.

Clark County will move ahead with planning a proposed downtown Vancouver biomass plant after y. But Vancouver City Council is skeptical of the idea, and it will have to make the zoning change to let the plant move in.

Nissan will resume taking orders for their all-electric Leaf on May 1, . Only 500 of the cars have been delivered in the U.S. so far, though thousands of EV enthusiasts are still on waiting lists. Check out my related story about the proposed road usage fee for electric cars in Oregon.

Newport will be the site of a wave energy research program, . OSU and University of Washington researchers will use the site near the Hatfield Marine Science Center to test some wave energy technology and its impact on the local flora and fauna.

A recent study found that solar panels increase the resale value of homes in California at , as compared to comparable homes without solar arrays. That’s not too surprising, but another interesting trend came out of the study: the value benefit of solar was higher where solar was installed on an existing home than it was for houses that came with the panels.

Finally, an update on the Business Energy Tax Credit: recent amendments to the bills aimed at extending BETC would formally split the credit into its three parts: manufacturing, energy conservation and energy generation, which Rep. Tobias Read wants you to call “Manny,” “Connie” and “Genny” to replace the “Betsy” nickname. The amended bills would also change how “Connie” and “Genny” calculate the tax credit: instead of getting a credit based on project cost, businesses will earn based on how much energy they save or produce.

The post Energy Roundup: BETC, biomass, electric cars and wave energy appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.