ORPC receives $1.3M for tidal power
Portland-based Ocean Renewable Power Co. today was awarded two Department of Energy grants, totaling more than $1.3 million, to develop tidal power technology.
"This investment is going to go a long way toward allowing us to develop the tidal power industry in Maine and create new jobs based right here in America," Chris Sauer, president and CEO of ORPC, said in a release from U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree's office, which announced the award.
The first DOE grant of $750,000 will help ORPC develop a standard mooring system for the tidal generators the company is building. The mooring system will be tested and deployed in the waters off Eastport, where ORPC is developing a tidal power project. The second grant, for $600,000, is to help the company monitor the effects of tidal generators on marine mammals, particularly whales. That technology will be tested at an ORPC facility in Cook Inlet, Alaska, according to the release.
Sauer told Mainebiz in a recent interview that the company expects to have 200 megawatts of capacity installed at its tidal generation plants by 2015. (Read a profile of ORPC in "Surging ahead," from the Sept. 7, 2009, issue of Mainebiz.)
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