Power Research Institute Challenges Practicality of Tidal Energy
Project

By JAMES KINSELLA
Gazette Senior Writer

Engineering analysis has raised questions about
the practicality of a proposed tidal energy farm near the Middle Ground
in Vineyard Sound.

Roger Bedard, ocean energy leader at the Electric Power Research
Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., said the tidal flow through the Sound is
not fast enough to make a tidal turbine energy project feasible.

Mr. Bedard said water bodies, regardless of size, need a median
tidal flow of at least five or six knots to make submerged tidal devices
work. But he said the flow in that area of the Sound is about three
knots.

An April study by the research institute into six possible tidal
energy sites in Massachusetts dismissed two Vineyard Sound sites as
lacking sufficient power density.

One site, north of Norton Point, is in the same area proposed for a
tidal energy farm by the Massachusetts Tidal Energy Co. of Washington,
D.C. The other is north of West Chop.

Massachusetts Tidal has proposed placing up to 150 submerged
propeller units between Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth
Islands in Vineyard Sound.

The company has applied for a preliminary permit from the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission to build the experimental underwater energy
farm between the southwestern corner of Naushon Island, Nobska Point in
Falmouth and an area west of Lake Tashmoo in Vineyard Haven.

Mr. Bedard, of the research institute, also questioned technical
aspects of the plan put forward by the company in its application to the
commission.

Told that Massachusetts Tidal had proposed using an array of
turbines that each could generate between 500 kilowatts and two
megawatts of power, Mr. Bedard laughed.

"There's no room in the Vineyard Sound for those
things," he said. "They don't know what they're
talking about."

Massachusetts Tidal is a subsidiary of Oceana Energy, a company
incorporated in Delaware to pursue tidal energy projects. Vineyard Sound
is one of eight sites around the United States coast for which Oceana
subsidiaries have applied for preliminary federal energy permits.

Oceana has obtained a preliminary permit for one of the sites, at
the Golden Gate Bridge outside San Francisco.

Other sites sought by Oceana subsidiaries include the Piscataqua
River in New Hampshire, the Kennebec River in Maine, the East River in
New York and the Columbia River in Oregon.

But the April study by the research institute found that the
Muskeget Channel between Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket is the
best site in Massachusetts for tidal energy generation.

The study calculates that tidal devices could extract a mean average
of 2 megawatts from the channel. The next highest mean average came from
the Cape Cod Canal, which essentially is closed to tidal energy projects
because of the canal's mission as a navigable passage.

"We knew about the other site," said Daniel Power,
president of Oceana Energy, speaking of Muskeget. "We might have
made a mistake. If it's not a good site, we have seven other
sites."

Mr. Power said Oceana had reasons for not choosing the Muskeget
site, including the lack of nearby power lines or transformers.

In April, Massachusetts Tidal filed for a three-year preliminary
permit for a tidal energy project in Vineyard Sound between the
Elizabeth Islands and Martha's Vineyard.

Tidal turbines would be placed in two sections, to the north and the
south of the Middle Ground and Lucas Shoal. The devices, whose rotating
propellers would range in diameter from 20 to 50 feet, would be anchored
to the sea bottom in navigable waters between 40 and 75 feet.

In the application, the company proposes a buildout of between 50
and 150 tidal in-stream energy conversion devices, along with a
transmission line that would connect the devices to the power grid near
Nobska Point in Falmouth and/or Lake Tashmoo in Vineyard Haven.

The company claims each device can provide power to about 750 homes.
Based on figures included in the filing, the built-out tidal farm could
generate between 25 and 300 megawatts at any given moment. That puts the
potential generation capacity of the farm at about two-thirds of the
estimated maximum output of the 130-turbine wind farm proposed for
Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound.

A 60-day comment period now is under way, after which the regulatory
commission will decide whether to grant the company the permit.

In its filing, Massachusetts Tidal said the institute is researching
the nature of the devices in a study titled EPRI North American Tidal In
Stream Energy Conversion Project.

But Mr. Bedard, the principal author of the study, who has been
investigating tidal energy generation for the past two and a half years,
said he has never heard of the company.

"Where did they come from?" he asked. "I think it
might be people who want to make a buck."

He said members of the company obviously have read the
institute's publicly available information on tidal energy,
especially given the company's adoption of the institute's
descriptive term for the devices, including the use of the acronym
TISEC.

The TISEC term was the winning entry in a contest that Mr. Bedard
ran among his colleagues for a name that would set the tidal devices
apart from traditional hydroelectric equipment. The prize was a bottle
of wine.

The research institute, founded in 1973, describes itself as an
independent, nonprofit center for public interest energy and
environmental research.

Mr. Bedard, who holds a master's degree in mechanical
engineering from the University of Southern California, has worked as
business development manager at the Electric Power Research Institute
since 1997. He first evaluated wave energy conversion devices more than
25 years ago.

Mr. Power said he has enormous respect for the research institute,
but he also said Oceana, an offshoot of the Climate Institute, a
20-year-old nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., has been deeply
involved over the past two and a half years in the study of tidal energy
potential.

The Climate Institute describes its mission to protect the balance
between climate and life on earth. Mr. Power said the institute, among
other projects, has helped American military bases to conserve energy
use.

"If he doesn't know who we are, how can he say things
like that about us?" Mr. Power asked. "And another question:
what's wrong with making a buck or two?

"If I wanted to make a buck, I'd invest in
ExxonMobil," Mr. Power said. "This is a really hard way to
make a buck."

TRC Environmental Corp. of Lowell is advising Oceana on the
preliminary permits for Vineyard Sound and the other sites. Jeffrey
Brandt, a project manager at TRC, said the permits, if granted, only
give Oceana's subsidiaries a priority in researching sites to
assess their suitability.

In its filing, Massachusetts Tidal anticipates spending between $1
million and $4 million on studies during the preliminary permit period.
The company would have to secure a series of regulatory approvals from
other agencies as well as a license from the energy commission before
building the project.

"Roger's question on whether it's feasible -
that's why we're doing this, to see if it is
feasible," Mr. Brandt said.