Newly appointed executive will market ORPC's marine energy expertise
File PHOTo / Tim Greenway
John Ferland, Ocean Renewable Power Co. vice president of project development, has been named president of ORPC Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary offering project development, licensing and strategic services to river and ocean energy projects.
Ocean Renewable Power Co.’s track record in developing successful pilot projects involving its marine hydrokinetic technology in Cobscook Bay and in a river next to a remote Alaskan village is proving to be a marketable commodity in and of itself.
“The marine energy market is coming to us, asking if we can help them with what they have going on with their projects,” said John Ferland, named this week as president of ORPC Solutions, the Portland-based company's wholly owned subsidiary offering project development, licensing and strategic services to river and ocean energy projects.
In a telephone interview Wednesday afternoon during a break on a business trip in Washington, D.C., Ferland elaborated on the company’s Tuesday press release announcing his promotion. Ferland acknowledged that as vice president of project development for the parent company — a role he will continue to hold — he has been deeply engaged in the subsidiary’s activities since its creation 15 months ago.
“What’s different is that we are formalizing an opportunity we have been experiencing to capitalize on the expertise we’ve developed,” he said, noting that ORPC Solutions will be selling a suite of consulting services ranging from financial analyses of prospective projects to the technical assessments of potential tidal or river power sites.
Ferland said the revenue generated by those consulting services complements the parent company’s continuing development of its marine hydrokinetic technology to become a viable clean energy option for producing electricity at competitive prices.
The pilot tidal power system deployed in Cobscook Bay in 2012, he said, is now out of water. ORPC is taking the lessons learned from that project to develop a “next generation” turbine-generating-unit that the company expects will be ready for installation off Eastport in 2016.
The same is true for the river power system ORPC tested last summerin the Kvichak River at the remote Alaskan village of Igiugig, 275 miles southwest of Anchorage. Ferland said the 25-kilowatt RivGen system will undergo further testing and design improvements, with a goal of eventually installing a full-scale system that can generated electricity at lower cost than the diesel-generated power now used by the off-the-grid village of Igiugig.
“It’s very much a global market,” Ferland said, referring to both ORPC’s ocean and river power systems and the expertise the company will continue to gain with the further testing in Maine and Alaska that will lead to scalable and competitive hydrokinetic technology.
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