[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
MARINE AND HYDROKINETIC ENERGY TECHNOLOGY: FINDING THE
PATH TO COMMERCIALIZATION
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND
ENVIRONMENT
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 3, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-67
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science and Technology
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.science.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. BART GORDON, Tennessee, Chair
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois RALPH M. HALL, Texas
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER JR.,
LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California Wisconsin
DAVID WU, Oregon LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington DANA ROHRABACHER, California
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
MARCIA L. FUDGE, Ohio W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
BEN R. LUJAN, New Mexico RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
PAUL D. TONKO, New York BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas
JOHN GARAMENDI, California MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
JIM MATHESON, Utah ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky PETE OLSON, Texas
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona
CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio
KATHLEEN DAHLKEMPER, Pennsylvania
ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
SUZANNE M. KOSMAS, Florida
GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
VACANCY
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Subcommittee on Energy and Environment
HON. BRIAN BAIRD, Washington, Chair
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
BEN R. LUJAN, New Mexico MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
PAUL D. TONKO, New York
JIM MATHESON, Utah
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
JOHN GARAMENDI, California RALPH M. HALL, Texas
BART GORDON, Tennessee
CHRIS KING Democratic Staff Director
SHIMERE WILLIAMS Democratic Professional Staff Member
ADAM ROSENBERG Democratic Professional Staff Member
JETTA WONG Democratic Professional Staff Member
DAN BYERSRepublican Professional Staff Member
TARA ROTHSCHILD Republican Professional Staff Member
JANE WISE Research Assistant
ALEX MATTHEWS Research Assistant
C O N T E N T S
December 3, 2009
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Brian Baird, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Energy and Environment, Committee on Science and Technology,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 8
Written Statement............................................ 9
Statement by Representative Bob Inglis, Ranking Minority Member,
Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Committee on Science
and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.................. 9
Written Statement............................................ 10
Prepared Statement by Representative Jerry F. Costello,
Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Committee on Science
and technology, U.S. House of Representatives.................. 11
Prepared Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Committee on Science
and technology, U.S. House of Representatives.................. 11
Witnesses:
Jacques Beaudry-Losique, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Renewable
Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S.
Department of Energy
Oral Statement............................................... 12
Written Statement............................................ 14
Biography.................................................... 21
Roger Bedard, Ocean Energy Leader, Electric Power Research
Institute (EPRI)
Oral Statement............................................... 22
Written Statement............................................ 24
Biography.................................................... 35
James G.P. Dehlsen, Founder and Chairman, Ecomerit Technologies,
LLC
Oral Statement............................................... 36
Written Statement............................................ 37
Biography.................................................... 43
Craig W. Collar, P.E., Senior Manager for Energy Resource
Development at Snohomish Public Utility District
Oral Statement............................................... 44
Written Statement............................................ 45
Biography.................................................... 56
Gia D. Schneider, Co-Founder and CEO, Natel Energy, Inc.
Oral Statement............................................... 57
Written Statement............................................ 59
Biography.................................................... 67
Discussion
The Problem of Outsourced Manufacturing and Test Beds.......... 67
Pace of Test Bed Development................................... 68
Keys to Expediting Projects.................................... 68
Species Safety................................................. 68
Turbine Design................................................. 69
Combining Wave and Wind Technologies........................... 70
Comparing Economic Costs and Benefits of Energy................ 71
Hydrokinetic Potential in the Great Lakes...................... 72
Low Head Hydropower............................................ 73
Other Promising Technologies................................... 73
Lessons from Verdant Power in New York State................... 74
Cost Competitiveness of MHK Technologies....................... 75
Impacts on Scenic Views........................................ 75
Progress to Date and the Power Density of MHK.................. 76
2009 Stimulus Funding for MHK.................................. 77
The Importance of Consistent Federal Support................... 77
Permitting and Regulatory Structure............................ 78
Energy Production From the Gulf Stream......................... 81
Thermal Energy Potential in the Oceans......................... 82
Closing........................................................ 83
MARINE AND HYDROKINETIC ENERGY TECHNOLOGY: FINDING THE
PATH TO COMMERCIALIZATION
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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2009
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Energy and Environment
Committee on Science and Technology
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brian
Baird [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
hearing charter
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Marine and Hydrokinetic Energy Technology: Finding the Path
to Commercialization
thursday, december 3, 2009
10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
2318 rayburn house office building
PURPOSE
On Thursday, December 3, the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment
will hold a hearing entitled, ``Marine and Hydrokinetic Energy
Technology: Finding the Path to Commercialization.'' The purpose of the
hearing is to explore the role of the Federal government and industry
in developing technologies related to marine and hydrokinetic energy
generation.
Similar to wind technologies of a few decades ago, interest in
marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) technologies is increasing around the
world. Also, as with the emergence of wind technologies of the 1970s,
MHK technologies of today need a considerable amount of RD&D before
commercialization. These technologies include wave, current (tidal,
ocean and river), ocean thermal energy generation devices and related
environmental monitoring technologies. There are a variety of energy
conversion technologies and companies active in this field, and some
MHK devices being demonstrated, primarily outside of the United States.
WITNESSES
Mr. Jacques Beaudry-Losique, Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy
Mr. Roger Bedard, Ocean Energy Leader, Electric Power
Research Institute
Mr. Jim Dehlsen, Founder & Chairman, Ecomerit
Technologies, LLC
Mr. Craig W. Collar, P.E., Senior Manager for Energy
Resource Development at Snohomish County Public Utility
District
Ms. Gia Schneider, Chief Executive Officer of Natel
Energy, Inc.
BACKGROUND
The marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) renewable energy industry is
relatively new, yet some of its technologies have roots from the
growing wind industry. Experts in the industry expect that MHK
technologies will follow a similar path as wind turbines. Significant
achievement in efficiency enhancements and cost reductions during the
past 30 years in the wind industry are transferable to MHK
technologies. Similarly, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
predicts that cost reduction forecasts for the MHK industry will follow
a similar path as wind technologies, but not without overcoming some
significant hurdles.
Studies have estimated that approximately 10 percent of U.S.
national electricity demand may be met through river in-stream sites,
tidal in-stream sites, and wave generation. This estimate includes
approximately 140 TWh/yr from tidal and in-stream river technologies
and 260 TWh/yr from wave generated electricity.\1\ This does not
include ocean thermal energy, ocean currents or other distributed
generation in man-made water systems.
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\1\ Electric Power Research Institute, ``North American Ocean
Energy Status.'' March, 2007.
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MHK generation could be important as it would meet the demand for
coastal regions of the U.S. Coastal regions are home to 53 percent of
the population of the U.S. despite comprising only 17 percent of the
land in the country. 23 of the 25 most populous counties are located in
coastal regions and the 10 fastest growing counties are in coastal
states--California, Florida, and Texas.\2\
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\2\ National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, ``Population
Trends Along the Coastal United States''. September 2004.
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Technologies and Industry Activity
Various MHK technologies can be used to harness energy from three
major sources: currents (tidal, ocean and river), waves, and stored
ocean thermal energy.
Current (tidal, ocean and river) Energy Technologies
There are several different energy technologies being used to
harness the energy found in currents. Ocean currents of the world are
untapped reservoirs of energy linked to winds and surface heating
processes. The Gulf Stream is an example of an ocean current. Tides,
another form of currents, are controlled primarily by the moon. As the
tides rise and fall twice each day, they create strong tidal currents
in coastal locations with fairly narrow passages. Examples include San
Francisco's Golden Gate, the Tacoma Narrows in Washington's Puget
Sound, and coastal areas of Alaska and Maine. Tidal in-stream energy
conversion (TISEC) devices harness the kinetic energy of moving water
and do not require a dam or impoundment of any type. Additionally, in-
stream river technologies can be used in any kind of free flowing
water, such as rivers or man-made canals.
Conversion devices used to harness energy from tidal currents are
similar to those used for river currents, the major differences being
that river currents are unidirectional and contain fresh water.
Different kinds of currents turn turbines- either horizontal (axis of
rotation is horizontal with respect to the ground, and parallel to the
flow of water) or vertical (axis of rotation is perpendicular to the
flow of water). The kinetic motion of the water turns the blades of the
rotor, which then drives a mechanical generator. The systems used to
harness energy from tidal and river currents are similar to those used
in wind energy applications. These similarities lead many experts to
believe that the development time for TISEC and in-stream river current
conversion technologies may be less than other MHK technologies, such
as wave energy conversion or ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC)
technologies.
Electricity generated from tidal currents has an estimated cost for
a utility and municipal generator ranging from 4 cents/kWh to 12 cents/
kWh, depending on power density.\3\ Additional cost reductions will be
achieved through economies of scale and improved engineering.\4\
Despite the similarities between in-stream river devices and in-stream
tidal devices, the former has no reliable studies regarding the cost of
electricity. Research regarding the cost of electricity for river
devices would help to expand the industry.
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\3\ This is the relationship between the density of the seawater
(in kilograms per cubic meter) and the instantaneous speed or velocity
of the stream (in meters per second).
\4\ Electric Power Research Institute. ``North America Tidal In-
Stream Energy Conversion Technology Feasibility Study''. June 11, 2006.
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Companies across the country are developing devices to harness
energy from currents. Verdant Power, established in 2000 and based in
New York, has three different projects. Its longest running project is
the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) Project operated in New York
City's East River. In 2005, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
(FERC) issued a special Declaratory Order allowing Verdant Power to
produce and deliver electricity to end users during the testing phase
of the RITE Project. The first federally licensed, in-stream
hydrokinetic power plant, developed by Hydro Green Energy, was deployed
on the Mississippi River in Hastings, Minnesota and began operating
commercially on August 20, 2009. This project was approved in December
2008 by FERC. Pre-installation environmental testing has occurred since
February 2009. The turbine has a nameplate capacity of 100 kW and its
expected output is 35 kW. A second more efficient turbine is scheduled
to come online in spring 2010.
Wave Energy Technologies
Wave energy conversion technologies use the motion of waves to
generate mechanical energy that can be converted to electricity. There
are many different devices in the testing, development, pre-commercial
and commercial stages. While all systems operate under the same general
concept of generating electricity through wave energy, they differ in
design and method of electricity conversion components. Some of the
most common technologies include: attenuators or linear absorbers,
pitching/surging/heaving/sway (PSHS) devices, oscillating water
columns, overtopping terminators, point absorbers, and submerged
pressure differentials.
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) states that the cost
of electricity for electricity generated through wave energy conversion
devices can range from 11.1 cents/kWh in parts of California to 39.1
cents/kWh in Maine. Wave technology is at approximately the same stage
of development as wind technology 20 years ago, just starting its
emergence as a commercial technology. At the beginning of wind power
commercialization, the cost of electricity was over 20 cents/kWh. For
each doubling of cumulative installed capacity, the cost of electricity
from wind energy decreased by roughly18 percent. The cost of
electricity is now around 6 cents/kWh (in 2006$). EPRI predicts that
many MHK technologies will follow this same path.\5\
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\5\ Electric Power Research Institute. ``North American Ocean
Energy Status''. March 2007.
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Despite the cost of wave energy generation several companies are
pursing demonstration projects. Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) founded
in 1994 and headquartered in Pennington, NJ has tested and is now
deploying its PowerBuoy worldwide. In 2007, PNGC Power signed a funding
agreement for OPT to develop a 150 kW PowerBuoy off the coast of
Reedsport, Oregon. This project received $2 million in support from DOE
in 2008. The first PowerBuoy is expected to be deployed in 2010.
Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) is also looking at wave energy
devices. They will be developing a testing center similar to the Wave
Hub (discussed below) and has been awarded a cost sharing grant of 1.2
million by DOE for this project. The California Public Utility
Commission is also contributing 4.8 million. The proposed WaveConnect
project, to be located in Humboldt County, will be able to test up to
four wave technologies at one time. PG&E was granted its FERC
preliminary permit in March of 2008 and is planning to apply for its
pilot plant license with the FERC in spring 2010.\6\
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\6\ Electric Power Research Institute. ``Offshore Ocean Wave
Energy: A Summer 2009 Technology and Market Assessment Update,'' July
21, 2009.
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Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Technologies
Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is an energy technology that
converts solar radiation in the ocean to electric power. OTEC systems
use the ocean's natural thermal gradient--the ocean's layers of water
have different temperatures--to drive a powerproducing cycle. More than
70 percent of the Earth's surface is covered with oceans. This makes
them the world's largest solar energy collector and energy storage
system. On an average day, 60 million square kilometers (23 million
square miles) of tropical seas absorb an amount of solar radiation
equal in heat content to about 250 billion barrels of oil. A fraction
of this stored energy can be converted to electricity with OTEC
technologies.
The three types of systems used for OTEC are closed-cycle, open-
cycle, and hybrid, which employ features from both closed and open-
cycle systems. Closed-cycle utilizes a fluid with a low boiling point
that is vaporized by warm surface seawater in a heat exchanger. The
vapor turns a turbo-generator, and is then run though a second heat
exchanger containing cold deep-seawater. This condenses the vapor back
to the liquid form and it is then recycled through the system. Open-
cycle technologies use warm seawater that boils when placed in a low-
pressure container. The steam from the boiling water drives a low-
pressure turbine that is attached to a generator. It is then condensed
back to a liquid. Hybrid systems involve warm seawater which enters a
vacuum chamber where it is flash-evaporated into steam, similar to the
open-cycle evaporation process. The steam vaporizes a low-boiling-point
fluid (in a closed-cycle loop) that drives a turbine to produce
electricity.
Even though OTEC systems have no fuel costs, the high initial cost
of building a facility makes OTEC generated electricity more expensive
than conventional alternatives. Existing OTEC systems have a low
overall efficiency, but there is reason to believe that subsequent
technology advances and an expanded body of research based on off-shore
oil and gas industry can make OTEC technologies cost-effective.
Lockheed Martin Corporation reports that one of the key challenges
facing OTEC is creating an economically viable plant. This situation is
due to the non-linear scale-up of major OTEC subsystems--increasing the
output power by a factor of ten increases the plant capital costs by
factor three. The resulting cost of electricity from the first 100 MW
commercial facility is calculated to be approximately 21 to 25 cents/
kWh. These rates are competitive today in such locations as Hawaii and
Guam. However, this number does not take into account several factors
such as production and investment credits and decreased costs of future
plants which further lower the cost.
OTEC systems currently are restricted to experimental and
demonstration units. Island communities which currently rely on
expensive, imported fossil fuels for electrical generation are the most
promising market for OTEC. DOE originally funded research in OTEC in
1980 and has recently awarded two grants to Lockheed Martin Corporation
totaling $1,000,000. The funding will help develop and describe
designs, performance, and life-cycle costs for both the near shore and
offshore OTEC baseline cost figures. Additionally, funding will go
towards the development of a GIS-based dataset and software tool to
assess the maximum extractable energy potential globally using OTEC
technologies. The U.S. Navy has expressed considerable interest in
OTEC. In September of this year the U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering
Command (NAVFAC) recently awarded Lockheed Martin an $8.12 million
contract to further the OTEC technology development.
International Activities
Many countries are developing MHK energy technologies. Brazil,
Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, China, Sweden, Mexico, Germany,
Australia, Portugal, India, Ireland, Japan, Denmark, Greece, New
Zealand and many others are all operating MHK energy devices at the
various scales of testing and commercialization. For example, South
Korea deployed their first commercial tidal power plant in May of this
year. It is estimated that this device will power approximately 430
households annually, and by 2013 it will have up to 90,000 kW of
capacity and supply electricity to 46,000 houses. South Korea is also
developing an additional 254 kW tidal power plant in Sihwa, which is
scheduled to be completed by the end of next year.
The United Kingdom (UK) has made efforts to develop MHK energy
technology. It has established specific funding streams and centers for
development and testing of MHK technologies. The UK's marine energy
goal is to have 2 GW of installed capacity by 2020. The Government is
also developing a Marine Action Plan that is expected to be published
by spring 2010. The Marine Renewables Proving Fund was established by
the UK Government to provide up to $32.8 million in grants for the
testing and demonstration of pre-commercial wave and tidal stream
technologies. They also have established the Marine Renewables
Deployment Fund, which will support technologies as they move from
development to deployment. Additionally, three device testing centers
have been established with a combined funding of up to $56.6 million
from the UK Government. They are:
New and Renewable Energy Centre (NaREC): The UK
Government appropriated $14.5 million to build on and utilize
existing infrastructure to provide an open access facility for
marine developers to test and prove designs/components onshore.
This facility includes complete in-house prototype development
facilities for wave technology, including a wave tank,
mechanical and electrical design engineering and procurement,
electrical engineering consultancy and support for power
conversion and drive train development, complete system testing
from marine environment to grid connection, resource and
feasibility assessment and consultancy, market analysis and
research, and project management, funding, and investment
coordination.
European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC): EMEC was
established following a recommendation by the House of Commons
Committee on Science and Technology in 2002. The UK will
provide $11.9 million as part of a renewable energy strategy
for their in-sea stage testing facilities--the only multi-
berth, purpose-built, open-sea testing facilities in the world.
The Edinburgh-based Pelamis Wave Power technology has generated
electricity to the national grid from its deep water floating
device at EMEC's wave test site. After being tested, the
Pelamis was deployed and connected to the Portuguese grid in
the fall of 2008, but is currently not in operation. Verdant
Power, Ocean Power Technologies and Columbia Power
Technologies, as well as other MHK energy developers based in
the United States have tested their technologies or interacted
with EMEC's testing facilities and staff. EMEC is linked with a
range of different developers and devices, as well as academic
institutions and regulatory bodies. EMEC aims to ensure that
different devices are monitored in a consistent way, using the
best available methods. Furthermore, the dissemination of
monitoring information can be carried out throughout the
industry, regulatory bodies and their advisors, as appropriate.
The Wave Hub: Due to be built in 2010, the Wave Hub
is a $62 million project in which a collection of wave energy
conversion devices will be connected to the national grid
through high voltage sub-sea cables. It will be the UK's first
offshore facility for the demonstration of wave energy
generation devices.
Barriers to Generation in the United States
Despite the fact that the U.S. has significant MHK resources and
several companies interested in the technology, more investment and
greater attention has been paid to these technologies in Europe. The
U.S. MHK industry is behind Europe and this could be because of a
variety of interconnected financial, regulatory, and environmental
barriers.
While cost remains one of the largest barriers, it is estimated
that with appropriate pilot and commercial scale demonstration of MHK
technologies, the cost of MHK generated electricity will quickly
decrease over time. Getting from pilot to commercial scale requires
investment in small-scale systems which are not yet proven
technologies. It is already difficult to finance new renewable projects
with the existing state and federal incentives. MHK projects have an
additional set of unique environmental and regulatory barriers which
add to the cost of installation and project uncertainty which investors
find risky. As a result, developers are put in the position of needing
to push for large commercial technologies to drive costs down, but will
not do so until a technology is demonstrated and proven commercially
viable.
Project finances are heavily dependent upon the pace of the
regulatory permitting process. This regulatory permitting process can
be costly, lengthy, and complex, and is a very significant barrier to
MHK development in the United States (not the focus of this hearing).
This process includes activities such as lease and revenue
negotiations, submittal of plans and operations concerning the
demonstration site assessment, construction and operations
requirements, environmental and safety monitoring and inspections.
Generally, many of these qualifications have not changed for over a
half century and were developed for traditional hydropower plants or
for oil and gas projects, not for demonstration MHK activities.
Although earlier this year the FERC and Mineral Management Service
(MMS) established a less complex permitting, licensing, leasing
framework, and pilot project approval process, there are still upwards
of 20 other federal, state, and local regulatory agencies which oversee
MHK projects.
Part of the complex net of regulatory barriers for MHK devices are
the environmental impact requirements needed for permits and licenses.
Baseline data collections and significant monitoring of individual
sites are needed to fully understand the impacts of MHK devices on the
environment. Although environmental issues are expected to be minor for
small numbers of units, one factor to be considered is whether large
numbers of units will have more significant impacts on the environment.
Techniques or models are needed to predict the cumulative effects of
multiple units in order to guide deployment and monitoring.\7\ A system
of management practices, known as ``adaptive management,'' is being
used to identify potential environmental impacts, monitor these
impacts, and compare them against quantified environmental performance
goals. Adaptive management is particularly valuable in the early stages
of technology development. In addition to site-specific research,
collaborative research that is shared across industry groups and
federal agencies is being discussed as a way to meet environmental
requirements. Participants in a workshop convened by the DOE agreed
that a facility, like the UK's EMEC, would be useful in carrying out
environmental studies and making results publicly available.
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\7\ Fisheries. Volume 32 Number 4. ``Potential Impacts of
Hydrokinetic and Wave Energy Conversion Technologies on Aquatic
Environments''. April 2007.
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Department of Energy Marine and Hydrokinetic Activities
The U.S. became involved in marine renewable energy research in
1974 when the Hawaii State Legislature established the Natural Energy
Laboratory of Hawaii Authority. The Laboratory became one of the
world's leading test facilities for OTEC technologies, but work there
was discontinued in 2000. In 1980, two laws were enacted to promote the
commercial development of OTEC technology: the Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion Act, (P.L. 96-320), later modified by P.L. 98-623, and the
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Research, Development, and
Demonstration Act, P.L. 96-310.
The Congress did not act on MHK technology 2005 (P.L. 109-58).
Included in section 931(a)(2)(E) was a broad authorization for
research, development, demonstration, and commercial application
programs for ocean energy, including wave energy. That authorization
contained no further instructions on how to structure a MHK program and
expires after FY 2010. Then as part of the Energy Independence and
Security Act of 2007 (EISA, P.L. 110-140) the Marine Renewable Energy
Research and Development Act of 2007 was authorized. This directed the
DOE to support RD&D and commercial application programs for MHK
renewable energy technologies, including tidal flow and ocean thermal
energy conversion technologies, and authorized DOE to provide grants to
higher education institutions for establishment of national centers for
marine renewable energy research, development, and demonstration. This
research received an authorization of appropriations for $50,000,000
annually from 2008 to 2012. Additionally, DOE is required to submit a
report in June of 2009 to Congress that addresses the potential
environmental impacts of MHK technologies--the report has not been
submitted as of yet.
Since the 2007 EISA authorization DOE has established a portfolio
of RD&D activities within the Wind and Hydropower program in the Office
of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The DOE has received $10,
$40 and $50 million over the last three years for all of the programs
water activities, this includes traditional hydropower. The MHK
activities have received a small amount of funding and the program has
issued a variety of small awards to fulfill its statutory obligations.
The two national centers were awarded $1.25 million each for up to 5
years: Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center, a partnership
between Oregon State University and the University of Washington; and
the National Marine Renewable Energy Center of Hawaii. DOE's program
priorities for their solicitations include systems deployment, testing
and validation; cost reduction and system performance/reliability;
understanding environmental effects; resource modeling; and development
evaluation and performance standards.
Although DOE has made significant efforts to conduct MHK RD&D, it
is not clear if DOE is able to meet the needs of the industry under the
current structure of the program. This hearing seeks to address the
following questions: (1) Should MHK activities be removed from the
larger Wind and Hydropower program and become its own technology
program? (2) How could test facilities or specific grants help deploy
more MHK devices into the actual demonstrate sites? and (3) How can the
DOE, working with other federal agencies, help overcome environmental
and regulatory barriers through better practices and improved
technologies?
Chairman Baird. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our
hearing on Marine and Hydrokinetic Energy Technology: Finding a
Path to Commercialization.
In today's hearing we will explore the role of the Federal
Government and industry in developing technologies related to
marine and hydrokinetic energy generation. These technologies
include devices which harness energy from waves, tidal, ocean
and river currents, and ocean thermal gradients. Development of
related environmental monitoring technologies is critical for
appropriate implementation of these emerging technologies.
Studies have estimated that approximately 10 percent of
U.S. national electric demand may be met through energy
generation from river in-stream sites, tidal in-stream sites
and wave generation. This projection does not include ocean
thermal energy, ocean currents or other distributed energy
generation from manmade water systems. While there is a huge
potential for energy from these technologies in the United
States, the U.K. has been referred to as the world leader in
ocean energy development by the International Energy Agency
(IEA) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). The
world-renowned testing facilities of the European Marine Energy
Centre are at the forefront of technology development, and are
the premier test bed and information center for policymakers,
academia and U.S. companies with new technologies.
The United States became involved in marine renewable
energy research in 1974 and enacted two laws on ocean thermal
energy in 1980. The Congress did not authorize significant
research on these technologies until the Energy Independence
and Security Act (EISA) of 2007. Since then DOE has built up a
modest portfolio of marine energy R&D activities within the
Wind and Hydropower program of the Office of Energy Efficiency
and Renewable Energy. This program has received a small amount
of funding and issued a variety of small awards to fulfill its
statutory obligations.
In my own home state of Washington, DOE has funded
OpenHydro, a tidal technology developer based in Ireland and
selected by the Snohomish County Public Utility District to
design and install a tidal energy pilot plant in Admiralty
Inlet. I am glad we have a representative of Snohomish here
with us today so we can hear about this project, which is
expected to begin operation as early as 2011 and produce up to
one megawatt of energy--enough to power roughly 700 homes.
With few exceptions, marine and hydrokinetic technologies
will need to be competitive in the marketplace if they are to
be widely deployed. Therefore, I am especially interested to
hear from our witnesses about the current and projected costs
of electricity generated from marine and hydrokinetic
technologies and how a more robust federal program might help
in bringing these costs down.
With that, I would like to thank our excellent panel of
witnesses, who we will hear from a moment.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Baird follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairman Brian Baird
In today's hearing we will explore the role of the Federal
government and industry in developing technologies related to marine
and hydrokinetic energy generation.
These technologies include devices which harness energy from waves,
tidal, ocean and river currents, and ocean thermal gradients.
Development of related environmental monitoring technologies is
critical for appropriate implementation of these emerging technologies.
Studies have estimated that approximately 10 percent of U.S.
national electricity demand may be met through energy generation from
river in-stream sites, tidal in-stream sites, and wave generation. This
projection does not include ocean thermal energy, ocean currents or
other distributed energy generation from man-made water systems.
While there is huge potential for energy from these technologies in
the U.S., the U.K. has been referred to as the world leader in ocean
energy development by the International Energy Agency and the Electric
Power Research Institute.
The world renowned testing facilities of the European Marine Energy
Centre are at the forefront of technology development, and are the
premier test bed and information center for policymakers, academia, and
U.S. companies with new technologies.
The U.S. became involved in marine renewable energy research in
1974 and enacted two laws on ocean thermal energy in 1980. The Congress
did not authorize significant research on these technologies until the
Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Since then DOE has built-
up a modest portfolio of marine energy RD&D activities within the Wind
and Hydropower program in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy. This program has received a small amount of funding and issued
a variety of small awards to fulfill its statutory obligations.
In my home state of Washington, DOE has funded OpenHydro, a tidal
technology developer based in Ireland and selected by the Snohomish
County Public Utility District to design and install a tidal energy
pilot plant in Admiralty Inlet. I am glad we have a representative of
Snohomish here with us today so we can hear about this project which is
expected to begin operation as early as 2011, and will produce up to 1
MW of energy - enough to power roughly 700 homes.
With few exceptions marine and hydrokinetic technologies will need
to be competitive in the marketplace if they are to be widely deployed.
Therefore, I am especially interested to hear from our witnesses about
the current and projected costs of electricity generated from marine
and hydrokinetic technologies, and how a more robust federal program
might help in bringing those costs down.
With that, I'd like to thank this excellent panel of witnesses for
appearing before the Subcommittee this morning, and I yield to our
distinguished Ranking Member, Mr. Inglis, for his opening remarks.
Chairman Baird. At this point I recognize the distinguished
Ranking Member, Mr. Inglis, for his opening remarks.
Mr. Inglis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this hearing.
This is a timely hearing. This year we have held hearings
on solar, wind and biomass energy sources. Hydropower
contributes more renewable energy to the U.S. electrical grid
than all these other renewable sources combined. Depending on
rainfall and water storage, conventional hydropower accounts
for 6 to 9 percent, that is 6 to 9 percent of the total U.S.
electrical supply.
Today we have the opportunity to explore ways to increase
the contribution from hydropower through unconventional water
sources. Marine-based hydropower represents a significant
source of unused energy. South Carolina has a coastline of
nearly 200 miles and considerable tidal resources around the
Sea Islands. Technologies that can take advantage of the waves,
currents, temperature differences and tides can turn our
abundant coastal and tidal zones into energy generators.
As we will hear from our witnesses, these technologies will
face a number of challenges related to environmental conditions
and competition with recreational and commercial activities. I
am confident, though, that we can manage all these challenges
to utilize this large potential energy source. Microhydro
represents a great opportunity for distributed electricity
generation in streams and rivers, irrigation canals and other
bodies of water previously not considered powerful enough for
power generation. Hydropower installations of 1 megawatt or
less can be deployed across the country, easing the burden on
our electrical grid and increasing the security of electricity
users around the country.
I am looking forward to hearing from our witnesses today on
the current state of these technologies, what we need to move
forward and what role the government should play in removing
barriers to development and installation.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Inglis follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Bob Inglis
Good morning and thank you for holding this hearing, Mr. Chairman.
This is a timely hearing, Mr. Chairman. This year, we have held
hearings on solar, wind, and biomass energy sources. Hydropower
contributes more renewable energy to the U.S. electrical grid than all
of these other renewable sources, combined. Depending on rainfall and
water storage, conventional hydropower accounts for 6-9% of the total
U.S. electricity supply. Today we have the opportunity to explore ways
to increase the contribution from hydropwer through unconventional
water sources.
Marine based hydropower represents a significant source of unused
energy. South Carolina alone has a coastline of nearly 200 miles and
considerable tidal resources around the Sea Islands. Technologies that
can take advantage of the waves, currents, temperature differences, and
tides can turn our abundant coastal and tidal zones into energy
generators. As we'll hear from our witnesses, these technologies will
face a number of challenges related to environmental conditions and
competition with recreational and commercial activities. I am confident
that we can manage all of these challenges to utilize this large
potential energy source.
Microhydro represents a great opportunity for distributed
electricity generation in streams and rivers, irrigation canals, and
other bodies of water previously not considered powerful enough for
power generation. Hydropower installations of I megawatt or less can be
deployed across the country easing the burden on our electrical grid
and increasing the security of electricity users across the country.
I am looking forward to hearing from our witnesses today on the
current state of these technologies, what we need to move forward, and
what role the government should play in removing barriers to
development and installation. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, and I
yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Costello follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Jerry F. Costello
Good Morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today's hearing
to examine the future of marine and hydrokinetic energy technology
(MHT) research and development (R&D) efforts.
MHT may become an efficient source of renewable energy in the
future, and many U.S. companies have expressed interest in researching
and developing technologies to harness energy from major sources of
water. However, MHT remains years away from being a commercial source
of energy because of several barriers, such as regulations and high
costs.
I am interested in hearing from our witnesses what steps they
believe are necessary to move these projects to the demonstration phase
and if there is a greater burden from the current regulatory system or
if the financial barriers to developing large-scale markets is overly
restrictive. I would like to know how this Subcommittee can help
overcome these burdens to move this research forward.
Finally, several of our international partners, in particular South
Korea and the United Kingdom, have made substantial investments and
developed large-scale demonstration projects in MHT. I am interested in
hearing how U.S. research efforts can work with their international
partners to learn from these demonstration projects.
I welcome our panel of witnesses, and I look forward to their
testimony. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member.
Thank you for holding today's hearing on marine and hydrokinetic
technologies and finding a pathway for their commercialization.
Today we have an opportunity to discuss what could potentially be
one of our greatest untapped renewable energy resources, water. Where
there is moving water, there is an enormous potential for power.
The possibility of utilizing the hydrokinetic energy our Nation's
vast coastlines possess is more than promising. Estimates suggest that
the amount of energy that could feasibly be captured from U.S. waves,
tides and river currents is enough to power over 67 million homes. As
we search to find viable and sustainable renewable energy technology,
we must consider the great potential hydrokinetic technologies promise
to yield.
My state of Texas has a solid industrial base for design,
fabrication and installation of marine structures. Texas also has a
trained workforce of divers and undersea technicians that would be
easily employable in a marine power industry for installation and
maintenance of these power facilities. The Gulf Coast including the
complete Texas coastline has a strong potential for development. My
district, which encompasses Dallas, Texas certainly has industry that
could help marine and hydrokinetic power move forward.
Although we can not, at the present, move completely away from
finite resources for fuel, we should begin to research and employ
renewable technology. Additionally, we must make a thoughtful
transition to clean renewable energy in a manner that would sustain the
competitiveness of crucial energy intensive industries that not only
provide our Country with jobs but also provide the world with products.
As we choose which energy resources to develop we must carefully weigh
all of their impacts.
Today's witnesses are of some of the top experts in the fields of
Marine and Hydrokinetic Energy. They have provided much thought to this
topic. I am keenly interested to hearing your opinions on how we can
provide a cost-effective environmentally safe method to deploy these
technologies.
Mr. Chairman, I want to welcome today's witnesses. Thank you, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Baird. I thank you, Mr. Inglis. We have been
joined by Dr. Ehlers and also by Mr. Smith from Nebraska. I am
always glad to see someone from Nebraska here at a tidal energy
thing. It shows that the concerns about global warming must be
real if we are planning on tidal energy in Nebraska. We have
got problems on our hands. But good to see you, Mr. Smith.
Thank you. He is an excellent Member of this committee. I am
glad to have him here.
With this, we will hear from our witnesses. Mr. Jacques
Beaudry-Losique is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Renewable
Energy at the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
for the U.S. Department of Energy. Mr. Roger Bedard is the
Ocean Energy Leader for the Electric Power Research Institute.
Mr. James Dehlsen is the Founder and Chairman of Ecomerit
Technologies LLC. Ms. Gia Schneider is the Chief Executive
Officer of Natel Energy. Did I skip somebody? Oh, okay. I am
sorry. And we are hoping Mr. Inslee will be here to introduce
Mr. Collar but I get the pleasant duty of doing that. From my
home state, Mr. Craig Collar is the Senior Manager of Energy
Resource Development for Snohomish County PUD, or Snopud, as
they sometimes call it, but I think Snohomish PUD is a better
deal. A beautiful county and great tidal resources there if we
can figure out how to harness them. So we have an outstanding
panel of witnesses, and as our witnesses know, you will have
five minutes for your spoken testimony. Your written testimony
will be included in the record for the hearing. When you have
completed your spoken testimony, we will begin with questions.
Each member of our panel will have five minutes to question
witnesses. With that, we look forward to your testimony. Thank
you again for being here.
Mr. Beaudry-Losique.
STATEMENTS OF JACQUES BEAUDRY-LOSIQUE, DEPUTY ASSISTANT
SECRETARY FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY, OFFICE OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND
RENEWABLE ENERGY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Mr. Beaudry-Losique. Chairman Baird, Ranking Member Inglis
and Subcommittee Members, it is a pleasure to testify this
morning. Thank you for your leadership in bringing these
important marine and hydrokinetic energy technologies to the
attention of the American public. The Department of Energy
shares your belief that these technologies have significant
potential to contribute to the Nation's future supply of clean,
cost-effective renewable energy.
Studies conducted by the University of Washington, Virginia
Tech and the Electric Power Research Institute estimate
approximately 400 terawatt-hours per year can be extracted from
marine and hydrokinetic technologies in this country, excluding
ocean thermal systems. This is enough electricity to power
cleanly approximately 36 million average American homes.
The Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy allocated a substantial portion of its
Congressional appropriations for water power toward the support
of marine and hydrokinetics projects. In fiscal year 2008, $9.1
million supported 14 marine and hydrokinetic projects. In
fiscal year 2009, funding more than tripled to $31.3 million,
which supported a total of 41 separate projects. And in fiscal
year 2010 we expect approximately $35 million to support marine
and hydrokinetics projects.
The Department provides needed research and development
funding for the industry, which is still at a relatively early
stage of development and includes many small firms. Only one
commercial project is currently operating in the United States,
a 100-kilowatt in-river turbine on the Mississippi River in
Hastings, Minnesota. Therefore, much of the work the Department
funds focuses on two major priorities: one, assessing the
Nation's resources, and two, determining baseline potential
future costs of energy through analysis and testing of device
performance and reliability, and the extent to which there are
environmental impacts associated with these technologies.
In order to monitor this developing industry, the
Department recently created an online database for devices
under development. This database provides detailed information
about the testing and deployment of these technologies around
the world, even though the majority of development is occurring
in Europe, North America, Japan and South Korea. The database
currently tracks 149 companies working on 123 devices, which
demonstrates that no firm industry consensus exists as to which
technology will perform most efficiently. In fact, technology
selection is highly dependent upon regional factors.
We segment the marine and hydrokinetic industry into three
major categories: one, wave energy, two, currents such as
ocean, tidal and river; and three, ocean thermal energy
conversion, or OTEC. In the first case, the United States has
experienced significant growth in the wave energy industry in
the last decade and there are currently more than a dozen
domestic companies and developers in existence. The size of the
domestic resources encourage the development of this
technology, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.
Second, the Department is committed to working with
industry to develop ocean, tidal and river current
technologies. For example, the Department recently made awards
to develop the first drive train uniquely designed for large
ocean current design devices and for a pylon-based mooring
system to increase efficiency of in-river turbines. The
Department also funds a number of projects in one of the most
promising areas in the country for development of tidal energy:
the Puget Sound in Washington the State. For the past year, DOE
and the Snohomish County Public Utility District have jointly
funded an initial survey siting and permitting work necessary
for the construction and installation of up to three turbines
at a tidal energy pilot in the Admiralty Inlet west of Whidbey
Island.
Third, ocean thermal energy conversion systems use the
ocean's natural temperature to generate power. OTEC could
produce significant amounts of alternative energy for tropical
island communities that rely heavily on imported fuels. The
Department is currently assessing OTEC lifecycle costs, testing
and manufacturing methods for coldwater pipes, developing a
national resource assessment, and evaluating specific
environmental impacts associated with large water intake
systems.
Furthermore, to help achieve program objectives, the
Department created and currently utilizes National Marine
Renewable Energy Centers. The centers are public private
partnerships with the goals of promoting research, development
and deployment of marine energy technologies. In 2009, two
centers were formally established, one at the University of
Hawaii and the other as a partnership between the University of
Washington and Oregon State University. The Department is
pleased with the progress that has taken place at the centers
since their recent inception. As an aside, next week I will
visit the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Sequim Marine
Research Facilities, which work in partnership with the
centers.
Finally, to enable market development, the Department
collaborates with the International Electrotechnical Commission
to develop codes and standards for all three groups of emerging
technologies, as well as with the International Energy Agency
to create a worldwide database of environmental research and
best monitoring practices for these technologies.
Looking to the future, the Department is currently
developing an industry roadmap. This effort will identify the
various barriers that limit progress and highlight the
technology developments, policies and other activities
necessary to overcome these barriers. The first step is
essential to ensure that marine and hydrokinetic power can
become another significant resource to the Nation's clean
energy portfolio in the long term.
So thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you
today to discuss these important issues, and I am looking
forward to answering any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Beaudry-Losique follows:]
Prepared Statement of Beaudry-Losique
Chairman Baird, Ranking Member Inglis, Members of the Committee,
thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the
U.S. Department of Energy's Water Power Program and its activities
related to marine and hydrokinetic energy generation technologies.
The global marine and hydrokinetic industry consists of energy
extraction technologies that utilize the motion of waves, the currents
of tides, oceans, and rivers, and the thermal gradients present in
equatorial oceans. The Department of Energy (DOE) believes that marine
and hydrokinetic energy technologies have significant potential to
contribute to the nation's future supply of clean, cost-effective,
renewable energy. In its March 2007 Assessment of Waterpower Potential
and Development Needs, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
conservatively indicated that marine and hydrokinetic power (exclusive
of ocean thermal energy resources) could provide an additional 23,000
megawatts (MW) of capacity by 2025 and nearly 100,000 MW by 2050. In a
more recent 2009 study appearing in HydroReview, collaborating authors
from the University of Washington, the Virginia Tech Advanced Research
Institute, and EPRI refined earlier estimates to conclude that
resources could conservatively yield a total of 51,000 MW of
extractable energy.\1\ This estimate is the equivalent of 34
conventional coal-fired power plants.\2\ The Department is currently
developing predictive cost and performance models to assess the near-
and mid-term economic potential for developing these resources.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Bedard, Roger. George Hagerman. Brian Polagye. Mirko Previsic.
``Ocean Wave and In-Stream ``Hydrokinetic'' Energy Resources of the
United States.'' Forthcoming publication in HydroReview. 2009.
\2\ Figures are based on the assumptions of an average coal plant
with 500 MW of capacity, operating with a 90% capacity factor, and the
average marine and hydrokinetic plant operating with a 30% capacity
factor.
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According to recent industry studies,\3\ potential ocean thermal
energy conversion (OTEC) resources may be even larger.\4\ However, it
is necessary to note that preliminary estimates of extractable U.S.
resources are just estimates of technical potential that do not equate
to economically recoverable energy. There still remains an industry
need for detailed, comprehensive resource assessments and validation of
the costs for recovering this energy, which the Department is currently
supporting through its programs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Nihous, Gerard. ``An Order-of-Magnitude Estimate of Ocean
Thermal Energy Conversion Resources.'' Journal of Energy Resources
Technology. December 2005. Vol. 127. p 328; Nihous, Gerard. ``A
Preliminary Assessment of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Resources.''
Journal of Energy Resources Technology. March 2007. Vol. 129. p. 17.
\4\ Estimates are between 3,000,000-5,000,000 MW for global
installed capacity.
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The marine and hydrokinetic energy industry is still at a
relatively early stage of development with less than a half dozen small
commercial projects installed worldwide and only one operating in the
U.S., a river hydrokinetic project in Hastings, Minnesota. Much of the
work being funded through the Department is, therefore, focused on
evaluating the size, location and specific characteristics of the
Nation's off-shore ocean and river energy resources, establishing
baseline cost, performance and reliability data for a variety of
devices, and assessing the environmental impacts associated with
various technologies.
As part of our comprehensive effort to evaluate marine and
hydrokinetic energy, the Department also funds targeted, innovative
research and development projects with industry partners and the
National Laboratories to address the near-term technical challenges to
device development and deployment, helping to generate reliable,
validated performance data and identify key cost drivers and reduction
opportunities. The Department leverages its extensive expertise in
technology development to identify and fund research in areas where
industry currently lacks either the capabilities or financial
resources.
Technology Overview
In order to monitor this developing industry, the Department has
recently created an online database for marine and hydrokinetic devices
that provides detailed information about the different technologies and
deployment activities occurring around the world. There are currently
dozens of unique device designs, and no firm industry consensus as to
which technologies will perform the most efficiently and effectively.
The database can present a snapshot of projects in a given region,
assess the progress of a certain technology type, or provide a
comprehensive view of the entire marine and hydrokinetic energy
industry.\5\ Based on information collected for this database, the
following is an overview of the different types of marine and
hydrokinetic technologies being developed around the world.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ The database can be accessed at http://
windandhydro.energy.gov/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wave Energy Technologies
Wave energy can be harvested from offshore, near shore, and shore-
based environments through a number of engineering approaches. While
there is currently no international consensus on nomenclature for wave
energy devices, the Department is working with the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change and the International Electrotechnical
Commission on standards to better define terminology. Major technology
types are listed below.
Attenuators: linear, jointed structures aligned
parallel to the direction of the oncoming wave. Attenuators
capture wave energy from the relative motion of their jointed
parts as the wave passes along them.
Point absorbers: floating structures that captures
energy through mechanical motion as they rise and fall with the
waves at or near the water surface.
Oscillating wave surge converters: near shore designs
that derive power from the back and forth movement of wave
surge. These devices often function as pumps, using pistons to
drive water through submerged or land based turbines.
Oscillating water columns: channel waves into a
partially submerged hollow chamber. The rise and fall of water
within the structure pressurizes the chamber's air column and
forces air through a turbine at high velocities.
Overtopping devices: a category of floating or shore-
based structures that are partially submerged, and funnel waves
over the top of the structure into an elevated reservoir. Water
then runs out of the reservoir through a turbine.
A variety of fully submerged devices are under
development that capture energy from the pressure differential
induced within a device from passing waves. Such pressure
difference can be used to drive a fluid pump to create
mechanical energy.
Wave energy currently represents the largest sector of the marine
and hydrokinetic industry both nationally and globally. The U.S. has
experienced significant growth in the number of wave technology
developers in the last decade, and there are now more than a dozen
operating throughout the country, with the majority developing point
absorber technologies.\6\ However, the United Kingdom still leads
countries in the total number of wave technology developers, as well as
the number of technologies in the latter stages of development. To
date, the U.K. is the only country in which a company's commercialized
wave technology has been sold to a publicly traded utility.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ ``Marine and Hydrokinetic Technology Database.'' Wind &
Hydropower Technologies Program. (Online, 6/19/2009, http://
www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/hydrokinetic/default.aspx).
Current-Based Energy Technologies
Technologies designed to capture the energy from moving ocean,
tidal, or river currents represent a smaller sector of the marine and
hydrokinetic industry, but can be considered more mature relative to
wave technologies due to the mechanical similarities hydrokinetic
turbines share with wind turbines. One of the main technological
differences between tidal current devices and those designed to capture
energy from ocean or river currents is the need for tidal devices to be
either bi-directional or change their orientation with the ebb and flow
of the tides. Generally, current-based technologies can be divided into
three categories: axial flow turbines, cross flow turbines, and
reciprocating devices.
Axial or horizontal axis turbines: typically consist
of three or more blades mounted on a horizontal shaft to form a
rotor that is oriented toward the direction of the flow. The
kinetic motion of the water current creates lift on the blades
causing the rotor to turn driving a mechanical generator. Axial
flow turbines can also utilize a shroud to protect and
accelerate water past the blades.
Cross flow turbines: typically have two or three
blades mounted along a vertical shaft to form a rotor. These
devices can extract multi-directional flows without the need to
orient to the direction of the flow. The kinetic motion of the
water current creates lift on the blades causing the rotor to
turn driving a mechanical generator.
Reciprocating devices: generate electricity through
an oscillating motion caused by the lift and drag forces of the
water stream (similar to the tail motion of a fish or marine
mammal like a whale or dolphin). Mechanical energy from this
oscillation feeds into a power conversion system.
Although the roots of the modern current technology sector can be
found in the U.S., developers of current-based technologies in the U.K.
were quick to develop and deploy axial flow turbines during the late
1990s and early 2000s to take advantage of the strong tidal flows
located in U.K. waters. The first grid-connected axial flow turbine,
known as ``Seaflow,'' was installed in May of 2003 on the North Devon
Coast in the U.K. Most of the technology development in this sector is
focused on axial flow turbines and is occurring in the U.K., U.S.,
Ireland, Canada, Norway, Australia and New Zealand. With the exception
of two companies that are currently developing cross flow turbines, all
development of current-based technology in the U.S. has focused on
axial flow turbines.
Ocean Thermal Energy Technologies
Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) systems use the ocean's
natural thermal gradient to drive a power-producing cycle. Temperature
differences between warm surface waters and colder deep waters need to
differ by about 20 C (36 F) for OTEC devices to produce significant
amounts of power.
The technology's lack of widespread development is due in part to
high upfront capital costs, which has delayed the financing of a
permanent, continuously operating OTEC plant. However, OTEC
technologies could potentially produce significant amounts of
alternative energy for tropical island communities that rely heavily on
imported fuels. Most research and development to date has taken place
in the U.S., Japan, Taiwan, and India.
Tidal Energy Case Study: Puget Sound
As one of the most promising areas in the country for the
development of tidal energy, the Puget Sound in Washington State is
currently home to a number of projects being funded by the Department.
For the past year, the Department and the Snohomish County Public
Utility District (SnoPUD) have jointly funded the initial survey,
siting and permitting work necessary for the construction and
installation of up to three turbines at a tidal energy pilot plant in
the Admiralty Inlet, west of Whidbey Island. It was recently announced
that the turbines will be designed and constructed by OpenHydro, a
company specializing in shrouded, horizontal-axis turbines. SnoPUD will
also be working with the Department and the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory over the coming year to determine the types of aquatic
species present in the Admiralty Inlet, and will further determine both
baseline levels of background noise as well as the acoustic impacts
that hydrokinetic turbines could have on these species. Finally, as
part of an ongoing project between the Department and the Northwest
National Marine Renewable Energy Center to develop integrated
instrumentation packages to collect environmental data, researchers at
the University of Washington have deployed state-of-the-art equipment
at the potential SnoPUD site to evaluate water quality, flow
characteristics, substrate composition and sedimentation rates.
Overview of the Water Power Program
The primary objective of the Department's marine and hydrokinetic
energy activities is to evaluate the potential contribution that each
of the aforementioned technologies can make to the nation's energy
supply, through the development of accurate resource assessments,
performance profiles, and lifecycle costs. Once the potential of the
various technologies is better understood, the Department can make more
targeted strategic decisions about which portfolio of research and
development projects to support, based on the most promising marine and
hydrokinetic technologies.
Resource Assessments
The Department is currently funding five separate resource
assessments to quantify potential technically extractable marine and
hydrokinetic energy by resource type and location. These include
assessments for wave, tidal, ocean current, river current, and ocean
thermal energy potential. The data generated by these projects will
help stakeholders assess the potential contribution to the U.S.
renewable energy portfolio and prioritize the level of investment for
each resource type. Two assessments (wave and tidal) are scheduled to
be completed by the end of fiscal year 2010. The other three
assessments were only recently awarded in September through the
Department's competitive solicitation process and are thus still in the
process of negotiating contracts for the data collection. The
Department aims to have each of those three assessments completed
within one calendar year of project initiation.
Siting Issues and Environmental Impacts
The Department is also working to understand the environmental and
navigational impacts of marine and hydrokinetic energy technologies and
to find ways to mitigate any adverse impacts. DOE is using this
information to identify best siting practices for marine and
hydrokinetic technologies and to create mitigation strategies to
address these impacts. DOE is also working with other government
organizations to develop best practices for ensuring the process of
siting and permitting is effective and efficient.
Under a cost-share contract with the Department's Bonneville Power
Administration (BPA) and funds from certain BPA customer utilities and
Washington State organizations, Golder Associates has been developing
the ``Integrated Decision Support System (IDSS)'' for location,
assessment, and optimization of in-stream tidal power development in
Washington State. The IDSS is a computing platform to identify and
analyze potential environmental, navigation, and fisheries issues and
conflicts related to siting. The platform will be a multi-user, web-
based geographic information system and tidal simulation model
database, including power estimation tools. The IDSS is intended to
provide siting decision-makers the information they need to make sound
siting decisions.
In addition, the Department conducts targeted research into the
impacts of marine and hydrokinetic technologies on ocean habitats and
individual wildlife populations, including fish and marine mammals.
This research includes studies how different types of hydrokinetic
turbines can harm or change the behavior of fish, investigates the
impacts of extracting energy from an ocean system on sedimentation
rates, and tests a limited range marine mammal acoustic-deterrent
system at an open water location.
Technology Performance and Cost Modeling
To determine the economic feasibility of harnessing the Nation's
marine and hydrokinetic energy resources, the Department is supporting
the development of numerical predictive cost and performance models as
well as technology development projects in each area to generate real-
life data to support and validate the models.
Although certain marine and hydrokinetic energy devices have been
developed and deployed as pilot-scale demonstration projects, very few
have operated continually for significant periods of time. As a result,
the efficiency, reliability, survivability, and cost of the various
devices types are not well quantified.
To validate, refine, and improve these models, the Department is
also partnering with industry to develop and deploy individual marine
and hydrokinetic devices that will generate the real-world data
necessary to inform accurate analyses of device cost, performance, and
environmental impacts. Partnering with industry will directly reduce
the time required to develop projects, and will provide critical data
on device performance and reliability. The Department's efforts include
support for in-water testing and development projects, as well as work
to design devices, sub-systems, and components.
Specific industry-led technology design and development projects
include:
Siting studies and the design of a grid-connected
test berth being developed by Pacific Gas & Electric Company
for multiple wave energy devices;
Construction and demonstration of an oscillating
water column device (called the Ocean Wave Energy Converter) by
Concepts ETI, Inc.;
Development and installation of a tidal energy device
in the Puget Sound by Snohomish County Public Utility District;
Demonstration of advanced composite cold water pipes
for ocean thermal energy conversion devices by Lockheed Martin;
Design and testing of a 2.5 MW Aquantis Current Plane
ocean current turbine, intended for eventual deployment off the
coast of southeastern Florida, by Dehlsen Associates, LLC;
Optimization, demonstration, and validation of an
intermediate-scale wave buoy from Columbia Power Technologies,
Inc. in preparation for a full-scale ocean deployment;
Scale-up of a previously tested power-buoy from Ocean
Power Technologies, which will increase the power extraction
rate, increase survivability, and reduce operation and
maintenance costs;
A Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with
Verdant Power to improve and refine the company's tidal turbine
rotor;
Design and validation of an innovative floating
support structure from Principal Power Inc. that combines wave
and wind energy power take-off mechanisms to defray the mooring
and installation costs associated with higher power output;
Design and testing of an easily replicable,
modifiable mooring system for fast-water tidal energy devices
by Ocean Renewable Power Company, LLC; and
Design, testing, and deployment in the Mississippi
River of a pylon-based mooring structure for in-river turbine
current technology from Free Flow Power Corporation.
In addition to the above projects that are focused on developing
specific devices and technologies, the Department also funds the
development of models, tools, and materials that can be widely used by
the entire industry to optimize performance, predict loads, minimize
failures, and reduce costs. The Department also maintains a database of
all U.S. facilities capable of conducting hydrodynamic testing of
marine and hydrokinetic devices, and is developing a program to aid
developers in testing and validating initial sub-scale device designs.
Budget and Funding for Specific Technologies
The Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy (EERE) has allocated a substantial portion of its
Congressional appropriation for Water Power toward the support of
marine and hydrokinetic projects. In fiscal year 2008, $9.05 million
supported marine and hydrokinetic projects, while $31.3 million in
fiscal year 2009 funding supported these projects. Some projects
utilizing these funds are technology-specific while others are cross-
cutting in nature. The Department plans to continue to provide
financial support for marine and hydrokinetic projects as appropriate
and according to Congressional appropriations and guidance.
In fiscal years 2008 and 2009, the Department awarded approximately
$5.8 million to five separate projects focused specifically on wave
energy development. These projects included a resource assessment, the
design and siting of a grid-connected open-water device testing berth,
engineering and testing an intermediate scale oscillating water column
device, and two projects to build and test next generation point
absorbing buoys.
During the past two years, the Water Power Program awarded
approximately $4.5 million to six tidal energy-specific projects. These
include a U.S. tidal energy resources assessment, the testing of new
environmental monitoring equipment for tidal projects, surveys of
aquatic species in the Admiralty Inlet, engineering design and
construction approvals for a pilot tidal plant, and projects to design
more efficient tidal turbine rotors and more reliable mooring systems.
In the area of ocean-current energy, the Program awarded $1.9
million across three ocean-current-specific projects, including the
development of the first drive-train uniquely designed for large ocean
current devices, a U.S. resource assessment, and the development of
environmental survey methodologies for potential projects located off
the southeast coast of Florida.
For river-current technologies, the Program awarded approximately
$1.3 million to two river-current-specific projects, including the
development of a pylon-based mooring system designed to reduce device
installation and maintenance times and increase efficiency, and a
nationwide assessment of in-stream hydrokinetic resources.
The Department awarded approximately $2.6 million in fiscal year
2008 and fiscal year 2009 to four projects focused on OTEC. These
projects include a specific evaluation of the environmental impacts
associated with the water intake systems, the validation and testing of
a new manufacturing method for OTEC cold-water pipes, a resource
assessment, and an assessment of the lifecycle costs of OTEC devices.
In August 2009, the Navy also announced that it would award over $8
million to Lockheed Martin for OTEC component and subsystem design and
testing. That project will be able to build upon the research currently
being conducted by DOE, and collaboration between our two agencies will
continue to ensure that there are no duplicated efforts.
The Department is developing lifecycle cost and performance
profiles for different marine and hydrokinetic energy device classes,
including wave, tidal, ocean current, in-stream hydrokinetic, and ocean
thermal energy conversion. These profiles are informed by baseline
representative commercial project development data from specific sites.
The baseline cost of energy data will allow the Department to
characterize and evaluate competing device classes and to identify the
key drivers affecting the cost of marine and hydrokinetic energy.
Verification of these data will also help the Department prioritize
research and development efforts in a manner that assists and
complements the industry's efforts.
National Marine Renewable Energy Centers
One of the mechanisms for achieving Departmental objectives has
been to create and utilize National Marine Renewable Energy Centers
(NMRECs), where a wide variety of work can be conducted. In 2009, two
NMRECs were formally established--one at the University of Hawaii, and
another as a partnership between the University of Washington and
Oregon State University (known as the Northwest NMREC). The Centers are
public-private partnerships between the universities, private
companies, non-profits and governmental organizations, all with the
goals of promoting research, development and deployment of marine
energy technologies.
The work at the Northwest NMREC is primarily focused on wave and
tidal research, with Oregon State focusing on wave technology
applications and the University of Washington concentrating on tidal
technology. Projects currently underway include:
development of advanced wave forecasting
technologies;
creation of models used to optimize the placement and
spacing of wave devices;
site selection and design for an open water test
berth for wave energy devices; and
development of integrated instrumentation packages to
collect environmental data.
Projects at the NMREC in Hawaii are focused on both wave and ocean
thermal energy conversion technologies, and include:
validation of wave forecasting models using real-time
data;
upgrades to wave tank facilities to accommodate
device testing by developers;
identification and testing of environmentally
friendly material coatings; and
modification of a submersible transport and recovery
vessel able to deploy large instrumentation packages.
The Department is pleased with the progress that has taken place at
the Centers over the short one year period since inception. During the
past month, the programs at both Centers were critiqued by a panel of
independent experts as part of an EERE-mandated peer review for all
marine and hydrokinetic projects. Peer Reviews are rigorous, formal,
and documented evaluation processes that use objective criteria and
qualified, independent reviewers to evaluate the technical, scientific
or business merit, and the productivity and management effectiveness of
programs and projects. The results of the peer review for the
Department's marine and hydrokinetic technology program will be made
publicly available within the next three months.
Because of the significant research and development work occurring
outside the U.S., establishing and maintaining collaborative efforts
with the international community has also been extremely important.
Currently, representatives for the Department are leading work on Annex
IV of the International Energy Agency's Implementing Agreement on Ocean
Energy Systems. The goal of this international collaboration is to
assess worldwide research on the environmental effects and monitoring
efforts for ocean wave, tidal, and current energy systems and will
result in a global, publicly-available database of information, studies
and best monitoring practices.
The need for international metrics to determine technology
readiness levels and performance is also paramount, and so the
Department is engaged with the International Electrotechnical
Commission (IEC) to facilitate the development of relevant industry
standards, provide consistency and predictability to their development,
and to better represent U.S. interests. The IEC is based out of Geneva,
Switzerland and is actively supported by 76 member countries in its
efforts to prepare and publish international standards for all
electrical, electronic and related technologies. Because of their
technical expertise, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) were jointly
selected to represent the Department on the U.S. Technical Advisory
Group to the committee and to support the participation of key U.S.
industry technical experts in the four relevant standards development
working groups of the IEC.
Strategic Program Planning
Looking to the future, the Department is supporting the marine and
hydrokinetic energy sector in developing a unified industry vision and
roadmap. This effort will detail the various technical, non-technical
and market barriers that limit progress and highlight the technology
developments, policies, and other activities necessary to overcome such
barriers. Based on industry consensus, NREL was selected to lead the
project to develop this roadmap on behalf of the Department, with work
scheduled for completion by the end of fiscal year 2010.
The Department has also convened several workshops with members of
the marine and hydrokinetic industry in order to better align the
Department's efforts with the needs of industry stakeholders before a
formal roadmap is completed. The first of these meetings, hosted by the
Department and EPRI, was held in October 2008, and the resulting report
is publicly available at http://oceanenergy.epri.com/
oceanenergy.html#briefings.\7\
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The development of a marine and hydrokinetic industry roadmap
directly supports DOE's ongoing internal efforts to develop a detailed
Multi-Year Program Plan for the Water Power Program. All of the
resource and technology characterization work currently underway is a
crucial part in developing such a plan. As an industry roadmap is
developed and ocean energy resources are accurately characterized, the
program will be able to more efficiently prioritize future efforts, and
tackle the barriers to technology development and deployment that it is
best suited to address. The Multi-Year Program Plan for the Water Power
Program is scheduled to be completed and made publicly available by May
2010.
The Department currently coordinates and leads an ad hoc advisory
committee to the Interagency Working Group on Ocean Partnerships (the
Joint Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology) focused on marine
and hydrokinetic issues, which includes the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission, Minerals Management Service (MMS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, Fish
and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Environmental Protection
Agency, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
DOE is providing support to the National Park Service in their
development of a report titled, ``Marine and Hydrokinetic Energy
Technologies and Recreation: A Guide to Concepts and Methods,'' which
will focus on potential impacts to recreation from marine and
hydrokinetic technologies, and suggest ways in which those impacts can
be studied and mitigated.
The Department is collaborating closely with NOAA to develop an
integrated permitting process for OTEC demonstration projects, which
DOE has authority over, and OTEC pilot projects, which are to be
regulated by NOAA. The Navy is also very involved in this process,
based on their high levels of technical knowledge and experience with
OTEC research.
The Department also participates in the West Coast Governors
Association's Ocean Energy Action team and worked with MMS to organize
its 2008 Alternative Energy Workshop. Finally, the Program helps to
shape the Department's position on national marine spatial planning
efforts currently underway at the Federal level, and continually works
to ensure that there is due consideration of marine and hydrokinetic
energy technologies in all discussions and decisions.
As stated previously, the marine and hydrokinetic industry is at a
relatively early stage of development and maturity when compared to
other renewable energy technologies, but the Department believes this
industry can play a substantial role in the portfolio of clean, cost-
effective, domestic energy that our Nation is dedicated to developing.
To this end, DOE is committed to evaluating the realistic potential of
the various resources and energy generation technologies and focusing
Departmental efforts in the most efficient and effective areas. DOE has
made key investments in this nascent industry and will continue to do
so. Furthermore, DOE is uniquely positioned to aid in the development
of marine and hydrokinetic technologies through continued support and
collaboration with industry stakeholders, international partners and
other non-governmental organizations. Most importantly, DOE's continued
involvement will help speed the deployment of these technologies, just
as the Department's commitment to wind energy has helped that industry
to rapidly develop in recent years.
Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today to
discuss these important issues. I am happy to answer any questions.
Biography for Jacques Beaudry-Losique
Jacques Beaudry-Losique was appointed in December 2008 as the
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Renewable Energy of the U.S. Department
of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
(EERE). EERE works to strengthen the United States' energy security,
environmental quality, and economic vitality in public-private
partnerships. In this role, he oversees a portfolio of more than $750
million of Renewable and Clean Energy programs, including wind, water
power, solar, biomass, geothermal and fuel cell technologies.
Previously, Mr. Beaudry-Losique served as the Program Manager of
DOE's Office of Biomass Program. Over two years, Mr. Beaudry-Losique
built what is now recognized as the largest and most advanced biofuels
deployment program in the world. He was instrumental in accelerating
the Office of Biomass deployment activities to support Presidential and
Congressional goals. Among numerous milestones, his office initiated
major programs to launch a cellulosic biofuels industry, including an
investment of up to $272 million in four major cellulosic ethanol
projects in 2007 and another investment of up to $240 million in nine
10% cellulosic biofuels demonstration projects in 2008. Jacques' office
also played a leadership role in helping industry address environmental
sustainability issues and supply chain bottlenecks such as the
``ethanol blend wall.''
Mr. Beaudry-Losique initially joined the Department as the Program
Manager of the Industrial Technologies Program in June 2005, serving in
that capacity until reappointed to the Office of Biomass Program in
December 2006. He brought to the Office extensive experience in
executive management, business development and commercial negotiations.
Prior to joining DOE, he worked in numerous senior management roles
in the private sector. As the business development leader of General
Electric Power Systems investment activities, he was responsible for
the placement of equity investments into strategic energy technology
companies. Prior to that, he held senior management roles with Aspen
Technologies, a leading engineering and supply chain software company
with strong ties to MIT. Mr. Beaudry-Losique also has many years of
experience as a management consultant with McKinsey and Company.
Mr. Beaudry-Losique holds a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical
engineering from the University of Montreal and a Master of Science
degree in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management from
Stanford University. As a recipient of a Canadian Science Foundation
Fellowship, he attended the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he
received a master's degree in management in 1992.
Chairman Baird. Thank you very much.
Before we proceed to Mr. Bedard, I want to briefly note
that our colleague, Representative Inslee from my home State of
Washington, has joined us. Mr. Inslee has introduced
legislation pertinent to this topic, and without objection, I
would like to ask my colleagues that Mr. Inslee be allowed to
join us on the dais. Hearing no objection, thank you for
joining us, Mr. Inslee.
With that, we will proceed to Mr. Bedard.
STATEMENT OF ROGER BEDARD, OCEAN ENERGY LEADER, ELECTRIC POWER
RESEARCH INSTITUTE (EPRI)
Mr. Bedard. Thank you, Chairman Baird, Ranking Member
Inglis and Members of the Committee, again, my name is Roger
Bedard. I am the Ocean Energy Leader at the Electric Power
Research Institute, a collaborative, nonprofit R&D
organization. I appreciate the opportunity to provide testimony
to this Committee on marine and hydrokinetic, or MHK,
technology, and the pathway to commercialization.
In 2004, we initiated wave energy technical and economic
feasibility studies. In 2006, we followed that up with tidal
hydrokinetic feasibility studies, and in 2008 with river
hydrokinetic studies in the State of Alaska. Our studies have
resulted in a substantial momentum, nationwide momentum towards
adding MHK technologies to our national portfolio of energy
supply alternatives. One measure of this momentum is the number
of preliminary permits filed to the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission (FERC) by private investors that reference the EPRI
studies.
I will focus my comments today on four key points. First,
the wave and tidal hydrokinetic energy resource available to
generate electricity in the United States is significant.
Second, the technology to convert these resources to
electricity is emerging and ready for testing in the ocean.
Third, wave and tidal hydrokinetic energy can be cost
competitive with other renewable technologies in the future.
And fourth, significant challenges remain to finding the
pathway to commercialization of MHK technologies.
Our studies indicate the total recoverable ocean wave and
tidal energy resource could enable electricity generation on
the order of about 10 percent of the present electricity
consumption, and that turns out to be about 400 kilowatt-hours
per year. The most significant of these resources is wave
energy and the locations with the most economically viable wave
energy resources are Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest. It is
important to understand, though, that many factors may limit
the use of this technology, including electrical transmission
capabilities, environmental concerns and societal
considerations.
There are many technology companies at various stages of
development. The development cycle for these technologies is
typically five to ten years. While there are now many companies
ready for prototype testing in the ocean, only a few have
reached that stage of development.
As wind technology was beginning to emerge into the
commercial marketplace, the wholesale cost of electricity was
in excess of 30 cents per kilowatt-hour. That is in 2009
dollars with no government financial incentives. Technology
improvements and learning through production has cut that cost
to about seven cents per kilowatt-hour today. Our studies
indicate that MHK technology will enter the marketplace at a
lower entry cost than wind energy did and will progress down a
similar learning curve. The key reason for that is the high
power density of the MHK resource compared to, say, the wind or
solar resources.
On the other side of that coin is a challenge. The
challenge for the industry is to develop cost-effective
deployment and operational maintenance technology given the
remoteness, and at times, hostility, of the operating
environment.
We believe that a robust electrical system in the future
will have a diversified portfolio of energy supply
alternatives. Our Nation has investigated all known electricity
supply alternatives except for one: the ocean. Our oceans are a
public resource accommodating multiple uses including marine
life, fishing, shipping and recreation. Ocean energy could work
in harmony with those other users and provide renewable energy
for the overall good of our society.
It will take a sustained evolutionary effort over the next
20 years to perfect MHK energy technology. We need to build the
capability in this country to design, analyze, fabricate, test
and deploy these emerging technologies.
In the area of testing and test facilities, currently the
U.S. marine energy industry is challenged by the lack of proper
and standardized infrastructure to deploy devices in the ocean.
We are starting to make progress. The Northwest National Marine
Research Center, led by Oregon State University and University
of Washington, will provide ocean energy conversion system test
berths for developers to perform ocean testing. The Pacific Gas
and Electric Company (PG&E) is developing a pre-commercial
demonstration test facility known as WaveConnect for full
system testing of arrays or farms of these devices.
Long-term and consistent government funding support through
this high-risk research, development and demonstration period
is essential for building a globally competitive commercial
U.S. industry. The idea of harnessing the vast power of the
earth's oceans has fascinated and tantalized humans for
centuries. Today we may be on the cusp of realizing these
potential MHK technology options that we expect will prove
tremendously valuable to our Nation in a carbon-constrained
future. Thank you.
[The statement of Bedard follows:]
Prepared Statement of Roger Bedard
Thank you, Chairman Baird, Ranking Member Mr. Inglis and Members of
the Committee
I am Roger Bedard, Ocean Energy Leader for the Electric Power
Research Institute (EPRI), a non-profit, collaborative R&D
organization. EPRI has principal locations in Palo Alto, California,
Charlotte, North Carolina, and Knoxville, Tennessee. EPRI appreciates
the opportunity to provide testimony to the Energy and Environment
Subcommittee on the topic of ``Marine and Hydrokinetic (MHK)
Technologies; Finding the Pathway to Commercialization.''
In 2004, EPRI initiated technical and economic feasibility studies
of ocean wave energy. We followed these studies with tidal hydrokinetic
studies in 2006 and river hydrokinetic studies in Alaska in 2008. These
studies have resulted in a substantial nationwide momentum towards
adding MHK technologies to our national portfolio of energy supply
alternatives. One measure of this momentum is the large number of
preliminary permit applications filed by industry with the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission for the development of MHK power
generation projects which reference the EPRI studies.
I will focus my comments today on four key points:
First, the wave and tidal hydrokinetic energy
resource available to the U.S. which can be converted to
electricity is significant;
Second, the technology to convert those resources to
electricity is emerging and is ready for testing in the ocean;
Third, wave and tidal hydrokinetic energy can be cost
competitive with other renewable technologies in the future;
and
Fourth, significant challenges remain to finding the
pathway to commercialization of MHK energy technologies.
The key message that I hope you will take away from my testimony is
that MHK energy is a renewable resource that we as a nation should
seriously consider as an addition to our national portfolio of energy
supply alternatives and that this consideration requires Government
support and incentives as it has with other energy technologies in the
past.
Background
The idea of harnessing the vast power of Earth's oceans has
fascinated and tantalized humans for centuries. Today, we may be on the
cusp of realizing this potential and enabling that to happen in the
U.S. is within your jurisdiction.
Marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) technologies is a term used by the
U.S. Congress to describe the conversion of ocean wave potential and
kinetic energy, in-stream tidal, open-ocean and river current kinetic
energy, and ocean thermal energy conversion It excludes offshore marine
wind kinetic energy, does not mention ocean salinity gradient energy
and should not be confused with conventional hydropower using a dam,
impoundment or diversionary structure.
EPRI believes that a robust electricity system of the future will
be a balanced and diversified portfolio of energy supply alternatives.
Our nation has investigated many if not all known electricity supply
alternatives (including space-based power; i.e., photovoltaic panels in
orbit beaming power to large antennas on Earth) except for one; our
oceans (with two exceptions, a large ocean thermal energy conversion
program in the 1980s and a more modest open-ocean current program in
the 1970s). Our oceans are a public resource held in trust and
accommodating multiple users; fisherman make their living from the
ocean, commercial shipping navigates the oceans to deliver goods,
recreational boaters, surfers and those who just walk on the beach
enjoy the ocean and whales and other living creatures make the ocean
their home. Ocean energy could be one of those users working in harmony
with other users and providing renewable energy for the overall good of
our society.
Some of the Benefits of Marine and Hydrokinetic Energy
The advantages of ocean energy are numerous. First and foremost is
a potential for costs that are competitive or lower than that of other
renewable technologies. EPRI studies indicate that the high power
density (kW/m2 for currents and kW/m of wave crest length for wave) of
the MHK resource results in smaller and stronger energy conversion
machines lower in capital cost than for other renewable technologies.
The remoteness and at times, hostility of the ocean environment,
however, results in higher deployment, operation and maintenance cost,
but on balance, the cost of electricity can be comparable or lower than
that with other renewable technologies. Other benefits include: (1)
providing a new, environmentally friendly, renewable energy source for
meeting load growth and legislated Renewable Portfolio Standard
requirements; (2) easily assimilated into the grid (because of the
predictability of the resource), (3) easing transmission constraints
(since a large percentage of our population lives near the coast) with
minimal, if any, aesthetic concerns; (4) reducing dependence on
imported energy supplies and increasing national energy security; (5)
reducing the risk of future fossil fuel price volatility; (6) reducing
emissions of greenhouse gases as compared to fossil fuel-based
generation; and (7) stimulating local job creation and economic
development by using an indigenous resource.
Existing industries in the U.S. such as ship building are looking
for opportunities to diversify, grow, and compete. These industries
provide a trained workforce and institutional knowledge that will
benefit ocean renewable energy technologies while helping to re-
vitalize their own sectors.
The economic opportunities are significant. A relatively minor
investment today could stimulate a worldwide industry generating
billions of dollars of economic output and employing thousands of
people while using an abundant and clean natural resource.
EPRI's Experience
EPRI's ocean energy experience is with wave and in-stream tidal and
river hydrokinetic energy. In 2004, we initiated system definition
technical and economic feasibility studies of ocean wave energy. At
that time, the DOE was only able to provide in-kind services support to
the EPRI efforts from the wind technology program at the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which had an off shore component
addressing related technical, environmental and regulatory issues.
Under the leadership of Dr. Robert Thresher, Director of the National
Wind Technology Center, NREL has provided valuable in-kind services and
we continue working together today. EPRI followed the 2004-2005 wave
energy studies in 2006-2007 with tidal in-stream studies and in 2008-
2009 with river in-stream studies in Alaska (over 50 reports are
available on our public website www.epri.com/oceanenergy/). The EPRI
studies have resulted in a substantial nationwide momentum. One measure
of this momentum is the large number of preliminary permit applications
filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by industry for the
development of MHK power generation projects in the U.S.
The Ocean Wave and In-Stream Tidal Currents, Open Ocean Currents and
River Currents Hydrokinetic Energy Resource
Available Ocean Wave Energy Resource
EPRI has estimated the U.S. wave energy resource using decades of
measurements by NOAA and Scripps data buoys. We estimate the available
wave energy resource to be about 2,100 TWh/yr (for all state coastlines
with an average annual wave power flux > 10 kW/m). This energy is
divided regionally as follows:
The amount of that available wave energy that can be converted into
electrical energy is not known given the uncertainties of societal,
device spacing, conflicts of sea space and environmental limits.
A preliminary estimate can be made by assuming absorption of 15% of
the total available wave energy resource, a power train conversion
efficiency of 90% and a plant availability of 90%. The electricity
produced using this assumption is about 255 TWh/yr or equal to an
average annual power of about 30 GW. The rated power is about 90 GW
given a typical capacity factor of 33%. This amount of energy is
comparable to the total energy generation from all conventional hydro
power, or about 6.5% of current U.S. electricity consumption. This is
significant.
Early wave plants must be built-out in phases with environmental
monitoring and an adaptively managed process to larger size plants so
that the cumulative effects of these larger plants stay within societal
limits of acceptability
EPRI, teamed with NREL and Virginia Tech, has received grant
funding from the DOE to perform a rigorous evaluation of the nation's
available ocean wave energy resource and practical electrical energy
generation potential. This work is scheduled for completion in 2010.
Available In-Stream Tidal Currents Hydrokinetic Energy Resource
Tidal in-stream hydrokinetic energy resources are not as well
understood as wave energy resources. Economically viable hydrokinetic
tidal energy sites typically occur in narrow passageways between oceans
and large estuaries or bays. EPRI has studied many but not all
potential U.S. tidal energy sites. The tidal energy resource at a
single transect for those sites evaluated by EPRI to date is estimated
at 115 TWh/yr with 6 TWh/yr at sites in the continental U.S. and the
remaining 109 TWh/yr in Alaska. Tidal hydrokinetic energy resources may
be locally important resources for the following regions in the lower
48 states; Maine, New York, San Francisco and Washington's Puget Sound.
The 115 TWh/yr estimate excludes sites with annual average power
densities less than 1 kW/m2. If in-stream energy conversion device
technology is economical at power densities less than 1 kW/m2, then the
available resource in the lower 48 states could be much larger. These
estimates should be considered as the lower bound of the tidal
hydrokinetic resource because not all the U.S. tidal sites with
potential have been evaluated.
The amount of the available tidal hydrokinetic energy resource that
can be converted to electrical energy is not known given the
uncertainties in societal, physical, ecological and environmental
limits. We understand how to estimate the kinetic energy resource
across a particular transect at a particular site, however, we have
learned that this estimate is a poor predictor of both the maximum
possible level of extraction for that site as well as the environmental
impacts of extracting kinetic energy from that site. From a purely
physical standpoint, depending on the limitations of seabed space
within the high-velocity transects and the requirement to maintain
adequate navigation clearance, the number of turbines that could be
sited within a constrained channel is known given a maximum packing
fraction for turbines. However, this could be limited to even lower
levels of extraction by the ecological implications of changing the
tidal regime by extracting kinetic energy from the flow. There is a
self-limiting point at which it will not be economic to add additional
turbines to an array since extraction reduces the available kinetic
energy. It is unclear whether the available space, social and
environmental pressures, or economics will pose the most stringent
limits on resource extraction.
Furthermore, our current understanding of how extracting
hydrokinetic energy at one site would affect the availability of
hydrokinetic energy at another site within the same estuary or bay is
insufficient to perform a resource estimate for an entire bay system.
A conservative assessment of the deployment potential can be made
by assuming absorption of 15% of the total available tidal hydrokinetic
resource at a single transect of a tidal passageway (serving as a
conservative proxy for the limiting factors discussed above), a power
train efficiency of 90%, and a plant availability of 90%. The
electricity produced using this assumption for the sites studied by
EPRI is about 14 TWh/yr. This corresponds to an average annual power of
1,600 MW and a rated power of about 4,800 MW given a typical capacity
factor of 33%. These estimates should be considered as the lower bound
of the tidal hydrokinetic resource because not all the U.S. tidal sites
with potential have been evaluated.
Georgia Tech has received grant funding from the DOE to perform an
assessment of the energy production potential from tidal streams in the
U.S. This work is scheduled for completion in 2010.
Available In-Stream River Current Hydrokinetic Energy Resource and
Practical In-Stream River Current Hydrokinetic Electrical
Energy Potential
A study carried out by New York University (NYU) graduate students
in 1986, using a set of assumptions which were stated to be
conservative, reported that about 110 TWh/year (average power of 12,500
MW) could be extracted from rivers using in-stream hydrokinetic energy
conversion and that the majority of the nation's river hydrokinetic
energy resource is in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Significant
rivers in the continental U.S. are illustrated below
System definition and feasibility studies performed by EPRI in
2008-2009 showed that river in-stream hydrokinetic energy may be a
feasible resource option for remote village electrification. EPRI
surveyed six sites shown in the figure below and performed system
definition and techno-economic feasibility studies for the three sites
shown in yellow. Two pilot projects (Yukon River at Eagle and Kvichak
River at Iguigig) are now underway at remote villages in Alaska, one
funded by the Denali Commission and the other funded by the State of
Alaska Renewable Energy Fund.
EPRI, teamed with NREL and the Universities of Alaska at Anchorage
and Fairbanks, was recently selected by the FY2009 DOE Waterpower
program for negotiation leading to award to assess the nation's river
in-stream hydrokinetic resources and was also recently selected to
perform desktop and laboratory flume studies that will produce
information needed to determine the potential for injury and mortality
of fish that encounter hydrokinetic turbines of various designs.
Behavioral patterns will also be investigated to assess the potential
for disruptions in the upstream and downstream movements of fish.
Available Open Ocean Current Resource and Practical Ocean Current
Electrical Energy Potential
The primary open-ocean current resource available to the U.S. is
located about 30 km off the shores of Southern Florida. The total
available resource is not known, however, both Aeroviroment in the
1970s and recently Florida Atlantic University have estimated a
practically recoverable electrical energy of 50 TWh/yr and an average
annual power of about 10 GW (a capacity factor of 57%). Other ocean
currents are typically located too far from shore or are too slow in
current speed to provide for practical or economical transmission of
power to load centers.
Georgia Tech was recently selected by the FY2009 DOE Waterpower
program for negotiation leading to award to assess the nation's open-
ocean hydrokinetic resources.
Resource Summary
Research by EPRI suggests that ocean wave and in-stream tidal
hydrokinetic energy resource is location specific and that the total
electrical energy production potential is equal to about 10% of the
present U.S. electricity consumption (or about 400 Twh/yr). The most
significant of these resources is wave energy and the locations in the
U.S. with the most economically viable wave energy resource are Hawaii,
Alaska and the Pacific Northwest (as far south as Point Conception
which is just north of Santa Barbara, California).
While this preliminary assessment provides a good first order
indication of the resource potential, it is important to understand
that many factors, such as electrical transmission capabilities,
economic viability, environmental concerns and socio-economic
considerations may impose additional limits onto these resources that
may substantially alter full development potential. Given the present
technical, environmental and economic uncertainties, it is important to
pursue all MHK resources in a sensible and strategic manner.
Status of Ocean Wave and In-Stream Tidal, Open Ocean and River Current
Energy Conversion Technology
Ocean Wave Energy Conversion Technologies
Today's wave energy conversion technologies are the result of many
years of testing, modeling and development by many developer
organizations. Total capacity deployed to date is about 4 MW worldwide,
and most of the devices are engineering prototypes. The first shore-
based grid-connected wave power unit was a system built into the
coastline of the Island of Islay in Scotland in 2000. In 2003,
WaveDragon of Denmark was the first offshore grid-connected wave power
unit and was deployed in a protected bay due to its subscale design.
The following year (2004), Pelamis of the U.K. was the first full-
scale, offshore, grid-connected wave power unit deployed in open seas
at the European Marine Energy Center (EMEC) in the U.K. Based on
successful testing at EMEC, the first commercial sale of an offshore
wave power plant was announced by Pelamis Wavepower in May 2005 and the
first 2.25 MW of that plant was deployed off the coast of Portugal in
2008. Unfortunately, the primary project investor, Brown and Babcock,
recently declared bankruptcy and the project is now on hold pending
further investment capital.
A number of demonstration projects are ongoing and planned in the
U.K, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, China, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the
United States. If these early demonstration projects prove successful,
medium-size wave farms up to 30-50 MW in capacity could be deployed
within the next five to eight years.
(a) PowerBuoy, courtesy of Ocean Power Technology, (b) OWC,
courtesy of OceanLinx (c) Pelamis, courtesy of Pelamis Wave Power, and
(d) WaveDragon, courtesy of WaveDragon,
Tidal In-Stream Energy Conversion Technologies
Today's tidal in-stream energy conversion technologies, much like
wave energy technologies, are the result of many years of testing,
modeling and development by many developer organizations. Total
capacity deployed to date is about 3 MW worldwide, and most of the
devices are engineering prototypes. The first grid-connected power
units were built and installed in the U.K. and Norway.
A number of demonstration projects are ongoing and planned in the
U.K, Norway, Sweden, France, Italy Korea, New Zealand, Canada, and the
United States. The first commercial in-stream tidal power plant has yet
to be realized.
(a) East River Roosevelt Island Tidal Project Axial Turbine
courtesy Verdant Power, (b) Gorlov Vertical Turbine courtesy Lucid
Energy and (c) Cross Flow Turbine courtesy Ocean Renewable Power Corp
River In-Stream Energy Conversion Technologies
Today's river in-stream energy conversion technologies are scaled
down versions of larger tidal water turbines. Unlike wind turbines
where the cost has come down as the sizes get larger, river in-stream
developers hope to achieve cost reductions through high volume
production of small machines, typically constrained in size due to
river depth limitations and navigation requirements.
Two river in-stream turbines have been deployed in the U.S.; a 5 kW
hydrokinetic turbine in the Yukon River in Alaska and a 40 kW
hydrokinetic turbine deployed downstream of the hydro potential
turbines at a conventional hydroelectric dam in Hastings, Minnesota.
Open Ocean Current Energy Conversion Technologies
Today's open-ocean current energy conversion technologies are
similar to tidal and river in-stream technologies but with the
potential of being very large in size due to the depths of the ocean.
The 1970s Coriolis water turbine design diameter was 170 meters.
The first commercial in-stream open-ocean power plant has yet to be
realized.
Energy Conversion Summary
There are many technology developers with different conceptual MHK
energy conversion devices and those devices are at various stages of
development. The time period for a MHK technology to progress from a
conceptual level to deployment of a long-term full-scale prototype
tested in the ocean is typically on the order of 5 to 10 years. The
technology is still in its emerging stage; like where wind technology
was approximately 15 to 20 years ago. It is too early to know which
technology will turn out to be the most cost-effective, reliable, and
environmentally sound, but it is likely that many different MHK
technologies will play a role in our energy future.
Of the many technology developers (greater than 50 each for wave
and marine water turbine hydrokinetic machines), only a few dozen have
progressed to rigorous subscale laboratory tow or wave-tank model
testing. Only two dozen have advanced to short-term (days to months)
subscale tests in the ocean. Even fewer have progressed to long-term
(>1 year) testing of a full-scale prototype systems in the ocean. Pre
commercial ``pilot demonstration power plants'' are needed to address
critical concerns about reliability, maintainability, environmental
issues and costs.
Status of MHK Power Projects and their Economic Competitiveness
Today, a large number of small companies, backed by government
organizations, private industry, utilities, and venture capital, are
leading the commercialization of technologies to generate electricity
from ocean wave and tidal, river and open-ocean current resources. A
small number of companies are leading the commercialization of ocean
thermal gradient (and salinity gradient) energy technologies.
Over two decades ago, wind technology was beginning its emergence
into the commercial marketplace at a busbar cost of electricity (CoE)
in excess of 20 cents/kWhr (in 2004$ with production credits and 5-year
accelerated depreciation). The historical wind technology CoE as a
function of cumulative production thru 40,000 MW of cumulative
production capacity deployed through 2004 is shown in the figure below.
Wind technology experienced an 82% learning curve (i.e., the cost has
reduced by 18% for each doubling of cumulative installed capacity).
Over 1,500 MW of wind has now been installed worldwide. EPRI studies
performed in 2004/2005 project indicate that wave energy will enter the
market place at a lower entry cost than wind energy did and will
progress down a learning curve that is similar to that of wind energy.
The wave energy industry has the advantage of higher power densities
compared to wind energy and therefore should have lower capital cost.
The challenge to the wave energy industry will be to develop cost
effective deployment and high reliability operation and maintenance
technologies with low costs. Otherwise, the cost of deploying and
operating these machines in a remote, and sometimes, hostile
environment will outweigh the initial capital cost advantages and the
CoE may not be competitive with other options.
The CoE is now approximately 7 cents/kWhr (in 2009$ with no
incentives) for an average 30% capacity factor wind plant. Today, MHK
technology status can be compared to wind 15 to 20 years ago; close to
starting its emergence as a commercial technology.
Government Support of Marine and Hydrokinetic Research, Development and
Demonstration (RD&D) and Commercialization
The European Union (UK, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France,
Spain, and Portugal) is leading the development and commercialization
of emerging marine and hydrokinetic energy technologies. Their support
to accelerate this development includes:
Supporting the technology developers with funding
Funding subscale and full scale test facilities
Establishing goals for commercialization
Developing roadmaps that point out the pathways to
meet these goals
Providing financial incentives necessary to meet
those goals
The Europeans have a 10 year head start on us in developing MHK
technology.
Other nations are also starting to engage in MHK energy. In Canada
for example, EPRI performed in-stream tidal system definition and
feasibility studies in the Bay of Fundy (Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick). Our 2006 studies resulted in an immediate announcement by
Nova Scotia Power for a multi million dollar tidal pilot demonstration
project in the Minas Passage. This project is now funded at $70 million
and the first of three large scale (1 MW class) machines has been
deployed. Two other tidal machines as well as the submerged
transmission cable will be deployed in 2010.
In the U.S., DOE manages a Waterpower RD&D program which began in
FY2008 at $10 million, increased to $40 million in FY2009 and to $50
million in FY2010. This DOE program is funding many projects, including
some of the EPRI work already discussed, but I will limit my testimony
to one managed by universities and two managed by utilities which
address a critical need; the need to test this new technology.
Currently, the U.S. marine energy industry is challenged by the lack of
proper and standardized infrastructure to deploy and test wave energy
conversion devices in the ocean. Testing of these new devices needs to
be done at scales that vary from small scale devices in subscale test
facilities, to full scale ocean testing of prototype machines and to
demonstration testing of pilot power plants. We are starting to make
progress and sustaining this progress with long-term and consistent
support is essential for building a globally competitive U.S. industry.
(1). The Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC)
is a DOE-funded partnership between Oregon State University (OSU) the
University of Washington (UW) and the National Renewable Energy Lab
(NREL). The University partition of responsibilities is as follows:
OSU is responsible for wave energy research and
development.
UW is responsible for in-stream tidal energy research
and development.
Both universities collaborate on research, education,
outreach, and engagement.
The NNMREC at OSU will provide wave energy conversion system
developers with test berths to perform ocean testing, demonstration and
advancement of sub-scale and full-scale devices. The first phase ocean
test berths will be ``mobile'', with future plans to include both
mobile and grid connected capabilities. The mobile ocean test berths
(MOTBs) will consist of a power analysis and data acquisition (PADA)
device and an adjustable load bank to simulate the utility grid as
illustrated below
(2) Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) WaveConnect--PG&E is the
largest investor owned utility in the country and its service territory
includes about 600 miles of high wave energy coastline. PG&E seeks to
complete final design, stakeholder outreach and permitting of two 5 MW
pilot ocean wave demonstration plants in this current phase of the
project. The next phase of the project will include building an
undersea electrical grid connection several miles offshore. This
``offshore electrical cable and socket'' will connect wave energy
converters from multiple vendors to the PG&E electrical grid (similar
to the U.K. Wave Hub funded by the UK government) and provide for
testing and evaluation of the devices for commercial deployment. The
current final design and permitting phase of the project is supported
through PG&E ratepayer funding (80%) and by the DOE (20%). A greater
level of Federal Government support may be needed once the project
enters into the construction phase.
(3) Snohomish County Public Utility District No 1 (SnoPUD)
Admiralty Inlet Tidal Power Demonstration Project--SnoPUD is located
near Seattle, Washington, and is the second largest publicly-owned
utility in the Pacific Northwest, and the twelfth largest in the United
States in terms of customers served. The PUD has a rapidly growing
service load and is required by the Washington State Renewable
Portfolio Standard (RPS) to supply 15% of its load from new, renewable
energy resources by 2020. As a result of these factors, approximately
140 MW of renewable energy resources needs to be added each year, on
average, for the next twelve years. The PUD believes that tidal
hydrokinetic energy from the Puget Sound estuary has the potential to
contribute significantly toward meeting this challenge, but also
believes in-water testing is required to address uncertainties in
performance, cost and environmental effects.
The PUD is partnering with OpenHydro of Ireland to conduct the
deployment, demonstration and testing of tidal in-stream energy
conversion technology in the Admiralty Inlet region of the Puget Sound.
The PUD currently envisions a ?1 MW pilot plant consisting of two to
three OpenHydro turbines. The PUD envisions plant construction
beginning in 2011. This project is currently supported at less than 50%
by the DOE and may need greater Federal funding in the construction
phase.
Conclusions
EPRI estimates the recoverable potential to provide electricity
from ocean wave and in-stream tidal hydrokinetic resources to be about
10% of today's electric consumption in the U.S. The technology to
convert those resources to electricity, albeit in its infancy, is
available today for prototype and pilot demonstration testing and
evaluation. Initial studies suggest that given sufficient deployment
scale, these technologies will be commercially competitive with other
forms of renewable power generation. However, significant technical,
economic, operational, environmental and regulatory barriers remain to
be addressed in order to progress this emerging industry to commercial
development.
It is critical for the success of this industry to gain a full
understanding of all life cycle-related issues over the coming years to
pave the way for larger scale commercial deployments. Such
understanding can only be gained in a practical way from the deployment
of prototype and pilot demonstration systems in the ocean. Currently,
the U.S. marine energy industry is challenged by the lack of proper and
standardized infrastructure to deploy and test wave energy conversion
devices in the ocean. We are starting to make progress and sustaining
this progress with long-term and consistent support is essential for
building a globally competitive U.S. industry.
Successful deployment of prototype and pilot demonstration systems
will not only address technology and economic related issues, but will
also provide confidence to regulators, the general public and
investors. Both market push (RD&D) and market pull mechanisms (economic
incentives to encourage deployment) will be required to successfully
move this technology sector forward and develop the capacity to harness
energy from the ocean.
It is very unlikely that any of this early stage development will
be funded by the private sector because the risk of failure is too
high. When an ocean energy development company can test a prototype
scale machine that shows promising performance, reliability and cost,
then the private sector investors may be interested. Even at that
point, the private sector will not want to assume all of the financial
risk and exposure to fully fund the first demonstration projects, or
the first commercial projects, so some sort of support for these early
commercial projects will be essential to get the industry started.
In retrospect, it is interesting to note that there are currently
only two major U.S. companies selling large utility scale wind turbines
in the United States, out of about a dozen that attempted to develop
wind systems over the past 30 years. On the other hand, there are six
major global companies now selling wind turbines in the United States,
and several smaller foreign companies. Long term and consistent support
through the high risk research and development period and though
demonstration is essential for building a globally competitive U.S. MHK
industry and commercializing it. It should also be noted that the
Europeans already have a 10 year head start on developing MHK
technology.
The eventual level of MHK power capacity in the U.S. will be
strongly dependent on enabling actions and policies that support the
development of the industry.
The establishment of national MHK deployment and timeline goals and
the research, development and demonstration pathways or roadmap to
success will assist in fully developing this potential. The funding
needed to implement the roadmap and achieve the goals will be a
significant higher than current levels, but within historical
percentages for government agencies and private industry. Given the
long technology development and deployment lead times inherent in
capital intensive industries like energy, investment and policy
decisions cannot be delayed without risk of losing opportunities for
technology options that we expect will prove tremendously valuable to
our nation in a carbon-constrained future.
Thank You
Roger Bedard
EPRI Ocean Energy Leader
November 29, 2009
Biography for Roger Bedard
Chairman Baird. Thank you.
Mr. Dehlsen.
STATEMENT OF JAMES G.P. DEHLSEN, FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN, ECOMERIT
TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
Mr. Dehlsen. Thank you, Chairman Baird, Ranking Member Mr.
Inglis and Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Jim Dehlsen.
My work has been in renewable energy technology since 1980,
mainly focused on wind turbine design, manufacturing and
helping to build the industry. The companies I formed and led
are today America's two wind turbine manufacturers of utility-
scale power generation: the wind division of General Electric
with roots going back to Zond Systems, which I established in
1980, and the second formed in 2001, Clipper Windpower. I can
state from this experience that both of these turbine
manufacturers would not exist today had it not been for the
enlightened U.S. energy policy stemming back to the oil embargo
in the 1970s. Since 1999 I have also been engaged in marine
renewable energy and recently formed Ecomerit Technologies with
my son Brent to advance electric power systems based on wave
and ocean currents. My wife tells me I flunked retirement.
I have been asked to address three items: advancing marine
renewable energy as a separate program from hydropower, the
expected time for marine energy to reach commercial readiness
and large-scale deployment, and the DOE industry partnership in
wind technology and implications for marine renewable energy.
First, hydropower and hydrokinetic have little in common.
The basis for establishing a marine hydrokinetic program
separate from hydropower is based not only on major differences
in requirements for offshore marine versus land-based system
deployment and operation, but also on very different technical,
financial and technology maturity characteristics. These two
hydros have little in common. Advances in the new marine
technology will be far more robust and will occur more quickly
and with marine hydrokinetic programs apart from, and not
under, the federal hydropower program.
Second, the cost of energy and deployment. For a decade I
have engaged in an effort to advance utility-scale power
generation technology for both wave energy and ocean currents.
Based on our engineering, we are targeting a cost of energy for
both technologies in the range of 10 to 12 cents per kilowatt-
hour by 2015, a level that should enable early
commercialization, provided the U.S. government implements an
effective program of incentives that supports marine renewables
more tangibly and consistently than the federal support for
wind energy. We are suspecting early systems to be megawatt
sized. Therefore, meaningful rates of deployment, several
thousand megawatts per year, should come in the 2015 to 2020
time frame in line with a forecast potential of 23 gigawatts by
2025, which was a recent estimate by the CORE. While this
appears quite accelerated when compared to the history of wind,
solar and other renewable energy technologies, it must also be
viewed in light of the advanced know-how which is brought
forward from marine engineering and shipbuilding, offshore oil,
submersible vehicles, knowledge we now have on structural loads
and control systems of wind turbines, the advanced numerical
model design tools and fabrication know-how of large composite
structures. This substantially reduces development costs and
timelines.
Furthermore, the urgency that is now upon us from climate
change and energy security is driving development of marine
renewable energy not just in America but Europe as well, now
with several years' lead, so we can expect a fast and
competitive pace of technology advancement.
Learning from wind power: The U.S. renewable energy
experience shows that in a government-industry partnership, the
fundamental factor for success is a sustained federal
commitment in the face of change, such as global price
fluctuations or shifting national priorities that come with
each Administration or political appointee. Perhaps the hardest
public policy lesson that has come out of the American wind
effort has been the repeated crippling effect on the industry
from discontinuity in government support. The United States was
in a clear leading position in wind power in the early 1980s
due to early support which gave birth to the industry.
Government support ended later that decade in the United States
and the wind industry virtually collapsed. A series of on-
again, off-again programs followed. While the U.S. wind
industry continued in a struggle for survival, strong European
Union support stimulated rapid growth throughout the continent.
Today the European companies enjoy the lion's share of the
industry, creating several hundred thousand jobs, generating
upwards of $40 billion a year and growing at 20 percent plus
annually. Now we are seeing massive support for wind energy in
China, which has initiated 10 separate 10,000-megawatt regions
representing $200 billion in industrial activity fully
supported by the central government.
While America had the foresight and made the investment to
launch the wind industry, discontinuity in support has allowed
other nations to capture a major share of the long-term
industry and industry benefits. We must not let this happen
with marine renewables. Government support should be
implemented quickly and sufficiently to sustain this emerging
industry until it reaches industrial scale. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Dehlsen follows:]
Prepared Statement of James G.P. Dehlseon
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, it is my pleasure to
appear before you today to discuss the role that the government can
play in advancing marine-based renewable energy technologies to meet a
significant part of the nation's future electricity supply.
I am Founder and Chairman of Ecomerit Technologies, which has a
focus on developing reliable, competitively priced, utility-scale ocean
current and wave-powered electricity generating systems. We are also
actively developing and investing in other sustainability-related
technologies. We are located in Carpinteria, California.
Ecomerit Technologies represents my third entry in developing
industrial-scale renewable energy technology. In 1980, I established
Zond Systems, Inc., which pioneered wind power technologies leading to
three generations of advanced wind turbines, and grew to become one of
the largest global companies in wind turbine manufacturing, project
development and plant operation. Acquisition of this technology and
manufacturing formed the basis for GE's entry into the wind energy
industry in 2002. As of last year, GE had produced over 10,000 turbines
with worldwide deployment.
I also founded Clipper Windpower in 2001 with my son, Brent, and
serve as Chairman of the Board. Clipper manufactures a new generation
wind turbine, the 2.5 MW Liberty -the largest turbine produced in the
U.S. -which received the Department of Energy's 2007 Outstanding
Research and Development Partnership Award for its contribution toward
industry advancements. Clipper is now in development on a 10 MW
offshore turbine -the world's largest -planned for introduction in
2012/2013. In its lifetime, one of these 10 MW turbines will have the
equivalent electricity generation of about 2 million barrels of oil.
It is important to note that the breakthrough wind energy
technologies developed by Zond and Clipper were made possible by DOE/
NREL grant funding and technical support, and this support also
accounts for a substantial part of the technological innovation that
has led to the success of the present $40 billion per year global wind
industry.
Key Elements for Success in Marine Hydrokinetic Technology (MHK)
Drawing on my three decades in developing and commercializing
renewable energy technologies, it is clear to me that marine
hydrokinetic power can now play a significant role in adding to our
national energy security, our economic development, and meeting our
environmental goals. However, as with wind and solar energy, it will
take a serious, robust and sustained partnership between the federal
government and technology developers in a number of areas, including:
Technology advancement, verification and acceptance
through support for research, development and deployment;
Clear, timely, predictable, and workable regulatory
framework for siting and permitting of marine renewable
projects;
Clear, timely, and predictable incentive regime
structure that facilitates rapid advancement of technology
deployment;
Close federal agency coordination and benefiting from
lessons learned here and abroad in both wind and hydrokinetic
power technology development and deployment; and
The development of standards and certifications to
provide confidence to customers and the financial markets.
Marine Renewables Overview
Today's emerging marine renewables industry includes technologies
with the potential to convert the power of wave, tidal and constant
ocean currents into utility-scale electricity supply.
The U.S. is blessed with abundant marine renewable resources on our
extensive coastlines. According to the Electric Power Research
Institute, the commercially available U.S. wave energy potential,
alone, is roughly equal to 6.5% of the nation's entire generating
portfolio. That is approximately the amount of electricity being
produced by all traditional hydroelectric dams in the U.S. Another
example is the Gulf Stream, just 15 miles off the coast of Florida,
which has a constant flow equal to 50 times all the rivers of the
planet and presents an opportunity to adapt much of the mature
technology developed for wind power to provide thousands of megawatts
of clean baseload power to the eastern seaboard states. Clearly, marine
renewable energy can play a significant role in expanding our homeland
energy supply and the power needs of our marine-related military
facilities around the world.
Federal commitment to creating a robust U.S. marine renewables
energy industry will advance our national economic goals by creating
high-quality employment in coastal communities, long-term production in
shipyards, development of fleets of vessels for deployment and
servicing, and strengthening the thousands of businesses that make up
the U.S. industrial supply chain. The establishment and nurturing of a
U.S.-based marine renewable industry would secure our nation's place in
developing offshore renewable energy technologies thereby ensuring that
the United States is an exporter, not an importer, of these
technologies.
Federal Support and Industry Partnership
The formation and growth of a U.S.-based marine renewables industry
is not a given. It is essential to understand that marine renewables
face significant challenges before they can become a meaningful part of
the nation's power supply. These challenges include the current limited
federal support, lack of adequate regulatory framework, and the need
for closer government agency cooperation.
At the same time, there is the opportunity for accelerated growth
of a U.S. marine renewables industry by adopting the ``lessons
learned'' and building on the successes of wind and solar development
programs both in the U.S. and Europe.
I strongly support the current action in Congress that would
address these issues head-on and with a strong sense of urgency.
Specifically, I support the pending marine and hydrokinetic program
reauthorization which would establish the following program parameters:
$250 million/five-year authorization of:
Research, Development, Demonstration & Deployment
(RDD&D)/separate program line for water power
Device verification
Five-year accelerated depreciation
I believe that this program could have a comparable success and
payback to the nation as experienced with U.S. programs in support of
wind power and solar energy technologies.
One of the key issues I would like to stress today is the need for
a serious, sustained federal effort to develop, demonstrate, and deploy
marine hydrokinetic technologies to economically help meet its needs
for energy security and CO2 reduction and for gaining a
global leadership position in the marine renewable energy sector and
benefit from the major industrial opportunity that it presents.
The federal technology programs, particularly those at DOE, have
over their 30-year history directly enabled the development and
commercialization of new energy technologies such as geothermal, solar,
biomass and wind. The Department's management -political and career -
and the technical experts at headquarters and the national
laboratories, can take much of the credit for helping to create today's
global renewable industries. They closely collaborated with the
emerging industry players to understand, and then mitigate risk; they
requested the funds necessary to research, develop and demonstrate new
technologies; they shared the pride when technology achieved commercial
success and gritted through the setbacks along the way; and they
promoted the new technologies, within the government, as well as with
the nation's utilities, and their consumers. They helped launch major
industrial activity and large-scale renewable power generation.
The U.S. renewable energy experiences shows that in a government/
industry partnership, the most fundamental factor in success is a
sustained federal commitment in the face of changing or uncontrollable
events, such as global oil price fluctuations or shifting national
priorities that come with each new administration or political
appointee.
I share two examples:
In the 1990's, the DOE/NREL support for wind energy technology
development and verification was highly effective and led to much
larger and more efficient turbines. During that time, my company, Zond,
developed three generations of turbines, greatly aided by technical and
grant support from DOE/NREL. This enabled Zond's growth to a leading
position in the industry, and eventually GE acquired the technology and
manufacturing for its entry into wind energy. By 2008, GE had produced
over 10,000 turbines, placing it among the top global wind turbine
companies. The $32 million in DOE/NREL grant support has leveraged well
in excess of $15 billion in direct economic activity.
In 2001, we launched Clipper Windpower to produce a new generation
turbine based on advanced powertrain architecture and controls. In the
same year, DOE/NREL solicited wind turbine technology proposals, and
with good fortune, Clipper was selected for a $9 million matching
grant. This was followed by over $150 million in private equity funding
for the 2.5 MW Liberty turbine, which we started manufacturing in 2006.
Clipper now has 800 employees, and there are 375 turbines deployed in
17 projects across the U.S., totaling 938 MW of generating capacity.
This success would not have been possible without the DOE/NREL's
assistance, from design to development, from demonstration to
deployment, and yielding the ``most advanced and efficient wind turbine
in the industry'' (DOE 2006 Report). Our DOE/NREL partnership again
resulted in significant new manufacturing activity, created jobs, added
to the Federal and State tax base, and helped grow the U.S. renewable
power industry.
But there is the other side of the coin. Clipper Wind was also
seeking to partner with DOE/NREL to develop offshore wind technology
when the offshore wind program was suddenly terminated in 2006,
significantly shifting the early offshore wind technology lead to
Europe. With this, Clipper had to revert to overseas for support, where
government incentive structures for technology development were robust
and consistent. Today, we are engineering the 10 MW Offshore Wind
Turbine in Blythe, England, where production is planned to start in
2013.
The UK now leads the world in offshore operating wind turbine
capacity, and the European Union has accelerated their offshore wind
program, expected to exceed $150 billion by 2020. They have set goals
of 20% from renewable energy deployment in 2020, which now includes
offshore wind, wave, and tidal currents. This is supported by robust
technology development grants and energy pricing mechanisms. UK
offshore renewable energy produces roughly double the revenue compared
to U.S. energy pricing.
China has installed its first offshore turbines, and its land-based
turbine deployment is expected to be the highest for any nation by 2010
and beyond.
Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Have Little in Common
The basis for establishing a marine hydrokinetic program, separate
from hydropower, is based not only on major differences in requirements
for offshore/marine vs. land-based system deployment and operation, but
also very different technical, financial, and technology maturity
characteristics. Traditional hydropower technology has remained
relatively static for decades. These two hydros have little in common.
Advances in the new marine technology will be far more robust, and
progress will occur more quickly with the marine hydrokinetic program
apart from, and not subsumed under, the federal hydropower program.
Technology Verification Program
I firmly support the Congressional language that would establish a
technology verification effort to increase marine-based power
experience and to build and operate enough candidate devices to obtain
statistically significant operating and maintenance data. The
technology verification program for wave, tidal, and current energy
systems is the bridge to commercial deployment of marine renewable
energy devices. This program is modeled on DOE's successful wind
turbine verification program of the 1990's, which lead to invaluable
experience on siting, permitting and operations. In particular, the
program significantly increased data collection to address the
uncertainty regarding impacts of the then-emerging wind industry. A
similar effort directed towards marine-based renewable energy
technologies would also enhance DOE's ability to effectively manage an
increased level of funding in a timely manner and with clear results.
Government Coordination
DOE should also work closely with other federal agencies that have
an interest in marine renewables, particularly with the Department of
Defense, the Department of Commerce (NOAA), and those agencies that
have regulatory authority and can provide incentives.
Since 2002, DOD has provided funding for the development of marine
renewable technologies. DOD facilities also offer a market for marine
renewable products and services, particularly to reduce dependence on
imported fossil fuels, which can be extraordinarily costly when
supplied to DOD and remote bases.
The lack of a clear, timely, and predictable regulatory regime
deters not only private investors in the technology, but also testing
and near-term deployment funding. Federal agencies with regulatory
authority or concerns related to marine renewables should work together
to streamline deployment of MHK projects. The recent announcement by
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that it has signed a
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with nine federal agencies to
streamline the siting of transmission lines provides an excellent model
that should be applied to the marine renewable energy sector. Federal
agencies should also coordinate with states that are either investing
in this technology or will play a role in permitting and siting
projects, including Maine, New York, Florida, California, Oregon,
Washington, and Hawaii.
Cost of Energy and Deployment
Since 1998, I have engaged in an effort to advance utility-scale
power generation technology for both wave energy and ocean currents.
Based on this engineering, we are targeting a cost of energy for both
technologies in the range of $0.10 to $0.12/kWh by 2015, a level that
should enable commercialization, provided the U.S. government
implements an effective program of incentives for research,
development, and deployment, that supports marine renewables more
tangibly and consistently than the federal support for wind energy.
Meaningful rates of deployment (several gigawatts/year) should come in
the 2015 2020 timeframe in line with the forecast potential of 23 GW by
2025.\1\
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\1\ American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), ``The Outlook on
Renewable Energy in America, Volume II: Joint Summary Report'', March
2007; ACORE: Hydropower Industry Outlook, presentation to ``Renewable
Energy in America: Phase II Market Forecasts and Policy Requirements,''
November 29-30, 2006.
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While this appears quite accelerated when compared to the history
of wind, solar, and other renewable energy technologies, it must also
be viewed in light of the advanced know-how, which is brought forward
from marine engineering in shipbuilding, offshore oil, submersible
vehicles, knowledge we now have of structural loads and control systems
of wind turbines, the advanced numerical model design tools, and
fabrication of large composite structures. This substantially reduces
development costs and timeline. Furthermore, the urgency that is now
upon us from climate change and energy security is driving development
of marine renewable energy not just in America, but Europe as well. So
we can expect a fast and competitive pace in technology advancement.
Learning from Wind Power Policy
The U.S. renewable energy experiences shows that in a government/
industry partnership, the fundamental success factor is a sustained
federal commitment in the face of changing or uncontrollable events,
such as global oil price fluctuations or shifting national priorities
that come with each new administration or political appointee.
Perhaps the hardest public policy lesson that has come out of the
American wind effort has been the repeated crippling effect, on the
industry, from discontinuity in government support. The U.S. was in a
clear leading position in wind power in the early 1980's due to the
U.S. government's investment in renewable energy technologies, which
started during the oil embargo in the 1970's. By the mid-1980's,
government support ended and the U.S. wind industry virtually
collapsed. A series of on again, off again programs followed. While the
U.S. wind sector continued in its struggle for survival, strong
European Union support stimulated rapid growth throughout the
continent. Today, European companies enjoy the lion's share of the
industry and have created several hundred thousand jobs, with a global
wind industry generating upwards of $40 billion per year and growing at
20% annually. We are now seeing massive support for wind energy in
China, which has initiated ten 10,000 megawatt regions representing$200
billion in industrial activity fully supported by the Central
Government.
While America had the foresight and made the investment to launch
the wind industry, discontinuity in federal support has allowed other
nations to capture a major share of the long-term industry/energy
benefits. We must not let this happen with marine renewables;
government policy should be implemented quickly and sufficiently to
sustain this emerging industry until it reaches industrial scale.
Summary
In summary, marine renewables offer enormous potential to stimulate
our economy, address our environmental issues, and to provide an
indigenous source of clean, renewable energy. I urge the Subcommittee
to support a serious and sustainable federal investment to stimulate
the continued development and ultimate deployment of U.S.-based marine
renewables at home and around the world.
Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today and
I am happy to take your questions.
Biography for James G.P. Dehlsen
James G.P. Dehlsen James G.P. Dehlsen, recognized as a pioneer and
world leader in wind power and renewable energy, co-founded Clipper
Windpower, Inc., in 2001 where he serves as Chairman of the Board of
Directors. Clipper developed the breakthrough 2.5 MW Liberty wind
turbine. Manufacturing started in 2007 and in 2008, 289 turbines were
produced, representing 722 MW and 8% of the U.S. market. Clipper is in
development on a 10 MW offshore turbine planned for testing in 2011.
Mr. Dehlsen founded Zond Corporation in 1980 and served as its CEO
and Chairman of the Board. Zond pioneered wind power technology,
growing rapidly to become one of the largest global companies in wind
turbine manufacturing, wind power project development and plant
operation. With its acquisition by Enron Corporation in 2000, Mr.
Dehlsen ended his Zond tenure. In 2002, General Electric purchased the
wind business and technology for its entry into wind energy and is now
a global leader in the industry.
Recognition for his work in the wind industry includes the Lifetime
Achievement Award by the American Wind Energy Association, and the
Danish Medal of Honor conferred by His Royal Highness, Prince Henrik of
Denmark. He was inducted into the Environmental Hall of Fame as a
leading environmentalist and ``Father of American Wind Energy.'' Mr.
Dehlsen has served as an advisor to the Department of Energy's Wind
Program, testified at the first U.S. Senate hearings on global warming,
and has served as a delegate to the Conference on Climate Change in
Kyoto, Japan. Mr. Dehlsen has eight patents and seven patents pending.
Chairman Baird. Mr. Collar.
STATEMENT OF CRAIG W. COLLAR, P.E., SENIOR MANAGER FOR ENERGY
RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT AT SNOHOMISH PUBLIC UTILITY DISTRICT
Mr. Collar. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Inglis and Members of the Committee. Again, I am Craig
Collar from Snohomish County Public Utility District. Snohomish
PUD is of course located in Washington State just north of
Seattle. We are the 12th largest public utility in the country
and we certainly appreciate the opportunity to provide
testimony on this important topic today.
As you are all aware, the marine energy industry really
today is in its infancy, and as a result there is very little
data available relative to the viability of marine energy
moving forward. In our view, the best way to close that data
gap is by the responsible deployment and close monitoring of
commercial-scale turbines at appropriately selected sites. In
fact, that is the very purpose and objective of our project in
the Puget Sound. Our project is already recognized as one of
the leading efforts in the country. We have an extremely strong
project team. It includes the University of Washington, the
Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center, EPRI, two
national labs, and of course, the Department of Energy. In
working with our partners, we have selected Admiralty Inlet as
the most appropriate site for our project, and as you can see
from the chart, Admiralty Inlet is the main entrance to Puget
Sound, and it is important to note, it is a very large body of
water. It is nearly three and a half miles across.
In terms of tidal technology, we have selected OpenHydro as
our partner for the project. OpenHydro is an Irish company.
They have licensed tidal turbine technology that was developed
here in the United States, and they are one of the few
companies in the world to have already deployed and tested
large-scale tidal energy devices and generated some data and
learning from those. In fact, one was deployed last month in
the Bay of Fundy up in Nova Scotia. The turbines utilized for
our project will be very similar to those for that project and
in fact are similar to the ones shown in the picture that you
seen on the screen. I will also take this opportunity to note
that the rotor on this turbine rotates at a very low speed,
only in the range of 10 to 20 RPM.
Now, we intend that our demonstration project will consist
of two to three of these OpenHydro turbines connected to the
electric grid. The project will overall be a very limited scale
relative to the size of Admiralty Inlet. In fact, it represents
less than five 100ths of a single percent of the cross-section
of Admiralty Inlet. This figure shows to scale what a tidal
turbine in a cross-section of Admiralty Inlet would look like.
It is also important to note that Admiralty Inlet is the main
shipping channel in and out of Puget Sound, so all commercial
traffic, military traffic, naval traffic all goes through
Admiralty Inlet. So by any standard and definition, Admiralty
Inlet is a working waterway.
Lastly, this figure depicts a bird's eye view of two
turbines to scale in Admiralty Inlet. It might be hard to make
out but the two small black dots that black arrow is pointing
to, that is how large these commercial-scale turbines would be
in Admiralty Inlet.
To date our project has been granted approximately $2.5
million in mostly federal funding and primarily from the
Department of Energy. So the Department of Energy support both
currently and ongoing will be absolutely critical to our
project.
With respect to environmental considerations, one of the
benefits of working with OpenHydro is they have actual data
from deployments of these devices elsewhere in the world,
primarily in Europe, and in fact, their projects have been
continuously videotaped since 2006 and to date there are
absolutely no interactions with fish or marine mammals and the
turbines while the turbines are operating.
In terms of permitting, we are utilizing the FERC pilot
process for our permitting effort. This process was developed
by FERC specifically to facilitate the licensing of small,
short-term, removable and carefully monitored projects just
like ours while reducing the baseline study burden, thereby
facilitating getting these projects into the water so we can
gather data.
Over the past three years we have conducted nearly 100
formal project communications meetings with over 50 various and
different stakeholder groups, importantly including of course
tribal governments and resource agencies. Now, one of the key
challenges that we face with resource agencies in particular is
balancing the small size and scope of our project with the
level of baseline information necessary to support permitting.
It is clearly recognized that if those requirements are too
burdensome, pilot projects like ours will never be able to
advance into the water and progress in the United States will
essentially be at a standstill.
Now, we believe that some resource agencies perceive that
their existing regulatory accountability really precludes their
support of a pilot process-type approach. For instance, the
National Marine Fisheres Service feels they have little
latitude to accept anything less than very detailed and
rigorous baseline studies in order to support their analysis.
Well, in fact, we are conducting in the neighborhood of $1
million of pre-installation and baseline studies just for our
small research and development project and to date National
Marine Fisheries has been reluctant to state really with any
certainty that even that will be sufficient. Because these
studies represent a very significant cost in advance of any
certainty of actually getting a license for the project, it is
very easy to see how this could easily prevent even leading
research and development projects like ours from moving
forward.
So in conclusion, it seems clear that so long as key
resource agencies are not enabled to effectively balance the
facilitation of renewable energy with their existing
responsibilities, the advancement of renewable energy in this
country is unlikely to progress at a pace sufficient to meet
our energy and environmental challenges.
Well, thank you again for the opportunity to appear before
you today. I certainly would be happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Collar follows:]
Prepared Statement of Craig W. Collar, P.E.
Thank you Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Inglis, and Members of the
Committee for the opportunity to appear before you to provide testimony
on this important topic. I am Craig Collar, Senior Manager of Energy
Resource Development for the Snohomish County Public Utility District.
Snohomish PUD is located in Washington State just north of Seattle and
serves approximately 318,000 electric customers and nearly 20,000 water
customers. Our service territory covers over 2,200 square miles,
including both Snohomish County and Camano Island.
Introduction
Snohomish PUD is the twelfth largest publically owned utility in
the nation and is located on the shores of the Puget Sound estuary. We
believe there is significant potential to generate clean, renewable,
environmentally benign, and cost effective energy from tidal flows at
selected sites in the Puget Sound, and that successful tidal energy
demonstration in the Sound may enable significant commercial
development in the Sound and elsewhere resulting in important benefits
for both the northwest region and the country. In order to meet the
demands of a growing service load, as well as a state renewable
portfolio standard, Snohomish is conducting exceptionally aggressive
conservation and energy efficiency programs. Additionally, in just the
past few years, Snohomish PUD has acquired the highest percentage of
wind energy of any utility in the Northwest and is actively pursuing
geothermal energy as well as solar, biomass and other clean resources.
We believe that tidal energy also has the potential to contribute
significantly as part of a richly diversified clean energy portfolio,
but that in-water testing is required to address associated
uncertainties in performance, cost, and environmental effects.
Snohomish has made significant progress towards the deployment of such
an in-water testing program, but while many barriers to this research
and development effort have been overcome, substantial challenges
remain to the successful deployment of tidal energy technology in our
region.
The marine energy industry today remains in its infancy; even in
the United Kingdom which has largely led the world in marine energy
development and testing, marine energy projects are limited to a small
handful of fairly recent efforts. As a result, little data relative to
the technical, economic, and environmental viability of ocean energy
generation has yet been established. Our view is that the most
effective way to address this data gap is via the responsible
deployment, testing and monitoring of utility-scale ocean energy
devices at appropriately selected sites--this in fact is the objective
of the Snohomish PUD Puget Sound Tidal Energy Demonstration Project.
The data from this project will inform Snohomish PUD's potential
development of other sites in and around Puget Sound, as well as
provide important information for other marine energy developers in the
nation.
Snohomish PUD Puget Sound Tidal Energy Demonstration Project
The purpose of the Snohomish tidal project is to gather data by
conducting the deployment, demonstration, and testing of tidal energy
conversion technology in the Puget Sound. The project is recognized as
one of the leading marine energy efforts in the country, has
substantial support in the region, and has built an exceptionally
strong project team. Snohomish PUD, in partnership with the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE), the University of Washington (UW), the
Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC), and the
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has conducted a thorough
evaluation of potential tidal energy sites in the Puget Sound, and has
selected Admiralty Inlet (Figure 1) as the most appropriate location to
establish a demonstration project.
Snohomish PUD and its partners have conducted an extensive suite of
studies both to establish the suitability of the Admiralty Site for
tidal energy generation, as well as to characterize important
environmental characteristics of the site. To date these activities
have included:
Acoustic Doppler current profiling and tidal current
modeling
Detailed bathymetry measurements and geotechnical
evaluation of the seabed
Remotely operated vehicle videography of the seabed
Water quality measurements
Background acoustics measurements
Multiple hydro-acoustic surveys to determine the
presence, location, and abundance of fish and other marine life
Passive acoustic monitoring to detect marine mammal
echolocation/vocalization
Passive monitoring for acoustically tagged fish and
marine mammals
Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) observation,
tracking, and behavior assessment
Tidal energy conversion technology assessment and
selection
Preliminary plant design and grid interconnection
study
Navigation, fishing and social considerations
Snohomish PUD engaged with over 30 tidal energy technology
developers worldwide as part of its assessment and selection program.
This effort included visits with the leading technology developers in
the U.S., Europe, and Canada, as well as to the European Marine Energy
Center (EMEC) in the Orkney Islands, Scotland. Following a detailed
evaluation process Snohomish PUD selected OpenHydro as its technology
partner for the demonstration plant. OpenHydro is an Irish energy
technology company whose business is the design and manufacture of
marine turbines for generating renewable energy from tidal currents.
The OpenHydro turbine technology was developed in the United States in
the early 1990's and the rights were subsequently licensed by OpenHydro
in 2004. During 2006 OpenHydro completed the installation of the first
tidal turbine at EMEC. This installation, mounted on a surface piercing
testing rig, is shown in Figure 2.
In May 2008 OpenHydro successfully completed the connection of the
test structure to the electricity distribution network, making
OpenHydro the first company to deliver tidal stream power to the UK
national grid. Since that time OpenHydro has successfully deployed two
additional turbines on completely submerged gravity bases; one at EMEC
and one in November 2009 in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia. The turbines
utilized for the Puget Sound demonstration plant will also be deployed
on completely submerged gravity foundations (as shown below in Figure
3) similar to those used for the EMEC and Bay of Fundy efforts.
Snohomish envisions that the demonstration plant will consist of
one or two OpenHydro turbines as large as 16 meters in diameter located
about 1 kilometer offshore in approximately 60 meters of water depth.
Power would be transferred to the electric grid on Whidbey Island via a
seabed cable. The cable deployment will utilize horizontal directional
drilling so as to avoid disturbing nearshore habitats. No anchor
placements, pilings, or surface-piercing structures would be involved
with the turbine installations or cable. In fact, both the turbines and
their foundations are specifically designed to be completely removable
for scheduled maintenance or other needs. The project would be of very
limited scale relative to Admiralty Inlet, representing less than 0.05%
of the Inlet's cross-section. The small scale and temporary nature of
the project significantly diminish the likelihood of adverse
environmental effects. Likewise, the water depth at the site and its
location outside of the shipping channel mitigates navigational
concerns. Figure 4 depicts a tidal turbine to scale in a cross-section
of Admiralty Inlet.
The OpenHydro turbine consists of a horizontal axis rotor with a
single moving part and power take-off through a direct drive, permanent
magnet generator. It is principally comprised of the rotor and the
stator; there is no requirement for a gearbox. The design incorporates
several key features to avoid or minimize environmental risk:
No requirement for oil/grease lubrication.
Rotor blade tips are retained within the outer
housing.
Slow rotational speed.
Ability for the rotor to be stopped quickly and
remotely
Cavitation prevented by design at specified
deployment depth.
Deployment method and gravity base design eliminate
need for drilling or piling operations, as well as facilitate
potential relocation and complete removal of both the
foundation/base and the turbine.
To date, the Snohomish PUD project has been granted approximately
$2.5 million in funding to support technical design and environmental
study efforts. Funding has been provided by the Bonneville Power
Administration, energy and water federal appropriations, and most
substantially by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Advanced Water Power
Projects program. Specifically, Snohomish PUD has received two separate
grants from the DOE to support project design and environmental
studies, and has developed partnerships with numerous entities to carry
out this work. In addition to the previously mentioned UW, NNMREC, and
EPRI partnerships, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory are also on the Snohomish team.
Snohomish PUD is also collaborating with the U.S. Navy's Puget
Sound KHPS Project, which is being conducted with Verdant Power. The
KHPS project plans for a test deployment of Verdant Power turbines for
a period of approximately one year. The proposed Navy project is
located approximately six miles south of the Snohomish PUD project
location as shown in Figure 5 below. The Navy has chosen the
southernmost of the two potential sites indicated for their project.
The KHPS project will be interconnected to facilities at Naval
Magazine Indian Island and will consistent of 3-6 Verdant Power
turbines as shown in Figure 6. Snohomish PUD and the Navy have
conducted some joint studies to share and reduce overall costs, and we
are actively working to share information and collaborate in developing
project operations and monitoring plans.
In addition to the Snohomish and Navy projects, there is also
consideration being given to the potential establishment of a National
Tidal Energy Facility (NTEF) in the Puget Sound. This facility would
utilize the infrastructure that will remain at the KHPS project after
the Verdant turbines have been removed, and would provide a
characterized, permitted site for test and demonstration of tidal
energy systems. The NTEF would be device-independent and would provide
consistent, comparable performance data for a range of tidal energy
devices and systems. The NTEF would provide developers with a permitted
test site so that their resources can be better focused on technology
development and not on permitting actions. Because the Snohomish and
KHPS projects will both be in progress prior to the potential
development of the NTEF, the data (technical, environmental, social,
etc.) generated by these earlier projects should inform the ultimate
design, utility and viability of developing the NTEF in the Puget
Sound.
Outside the Puget Sound, Oregon State University (OSU), as a NNMREC
partner, is working primarily to advance the wave energy industry. This
includes improved wave energy forecasting for both offshore and near
shore locations, device and array optimization methods and models,
environmental effects evaluation, and the development of a mobile test
berth for full scale wave device testing. Testing and evaluation will
identify best practices for maintenance and quality control of wave
energy systems and refine wave energy power measurements. The State of
Oregon has invested significantly in wave energy including the
formation of the Oregon Wave Energy Trust and designation of State
capital funds to OSU as direct investment in the development of the
NNMREC.
Environmental Considerations and Studies
While they are limited in scope, existing data and assessments
regarding currently operating and proposed tidal projects are notable
in that they document no substantial or unanticipated environmental
risk. Scotland's Orkney Islands (where EMEC and the OpenHydro turbine
are located) represent a very ecologically diverse and productive
marine ecosystem which is home to a number of fish and marine mammal
species. Fish and shellfish species include: mackerel, herring,
haddock, cod, monkfish, several flat fish species, lobster, crab, and
scallops. Marine mammal species include: otters, seals, minke whale,
harbor porpoise, white-sided dolphin, common dolphin, killer whale, and
pilot whale. Leatherback turtles also regularly visit Scottish waters
between August and November. Operation of the EMEC OpenHydro turbine
installation has been continuously videotaped while in operation since
2006 and to date no marine life incidents have been recorded. Review of
the videotape data indicates that fish and marine mammals avoid and do
not interact with the device while it is rotating, but as might be
expected some fish species do aggregate downstream of the turbine at
tidal current velocities too low for the turbine to rotate (Figure 7).
During periods of tidal current velocity energetic enough to turn
the turbine's rotor the fish have been observed to leave the area
rather than expend energy to maintain position against the flow of the
tidal currents. It is also important to note that the flow dynamics of
the turbine are such that the device will not ``entrain'' fish in any
conventional hydropower turbine sense, but rather fish or other objects
in the tidal flow would be drawn through the center opening or around
the outside of the device. The previously noted OpenHydro installation
in the Bay of Fundy was recently evaluated in a comprehensive
Environmental Assessment report to Canadian federal and provincial
governments; the likely effects of the project were found to be limited
in scope and duration. While these and similar assessments do not by
themselves document a lack of environmental effects for the Admiralty
Inlet Pilot Project, Snohomish PUD believes they provide important
context that must be considered in developing study plans and
environmental analyses. Admiralty Inlet supports or includes designated
critical habitat for eight ESA-listed species managed by the National
Marine Fisheries Service (and two managed by the US Fish and Wildlife
Service) and supports a wealth of unlisted marine resources as well. As
is the case for the entirety of Puget Sound, Admiralty Inlet is
designated as Essential Fish Habitat for a number of species and
includes several Habitat Areas of Particular Concern. It is important
to note that Admiralty Inlet also includes a major shipping lane
utilized by essentially all commercial and military traffic in and out
of Puget Sound, substantial shoreline development, and a busy ferry
route operating directly to the south of the project site.
Snohomish PUD is conducting environmental analyses by assessing
potential mechanisms of effect for the species known or believed to
occur in the project area based on existing information and a suite of
pre-installation studies. Snohomish is also developing a significant
monitoring effort to determine if unacceptable impacts occur or are
likely to occur. An approach focused on monitoring enables direct
evaluation of the primary unanswered question of how marine life will
interact with the turbines. The NNMREC has been a key partner in the
design and execution of project pre-installation studies conducted so
far. An instrumentation platform designed by the University of
Washington Applied Physics Laboratory to facilitate the study of tidal
sites is shown in Figure 8. This platform is currently deployed on the
seabed at the project site and has already delivered important
information during the several months that it has been in service.
Because there is not yet any subsea cable run to the deployment
site, the platform must be retrieved and redeployed approximately every
three months to download collected data and replace batteries. While
pre-installation studies have essentially been completely developed and
are underway, development of studies intended to monitor the project
once it is operating continues. Potential project effects identified by
Snohomish include modifying local habitat by adding new structure,
blade strike or collision and similar ``near field'' effects, altered
behavior patterns of some marine mammals or fish, modification of the
acoustic or hydrodynamic environment, and the accumulation of derelict
fishing gear. The goal of Snohomish's proposed monitoring efforts is to
detect and describe in detail the potential for interactions between
the project and marine species.
The specific objectives of Snohomish's proposed monitoring efforts
are:
Assess near-turbine presence and distribution of
marine species;
Assess near-turbine fish behavior;
Identify near-turbine species composition;
Evaluate the Project's acoustic signature;
Evaluate the Project's effects on hydrodynamics; and
Monitor and remove derelict gear.
Evaluate potential effects of construction,
decommissioning, or maintenance on aquatic species and water
quality.
To address these objectives, Snohomish proposes to pursue the
following monitoring efforts:
Near-turbine monitoring and identification of aquatic
species;
Acoustic monitoring;
Hydrodynamic effects monitoring;
Derelict gear monitoring and removal; and
Construction monitoring.
Snohomish believes the methods described below represent the best
current practices for evaluating presence, distribution, and behavior
of mobile marine species. At the same time, both hydrokinetic and
hydroacoustic technologies are evolving at a rapid pace that makes it
likely there will be significant technological advances and new
information regarding hydrokinetic turbines during the course of pre-
installation licensing efforts for the project. As a result, there is
an expectation that changes will occur over time and will be addressed
through an adaptive management program.
Numerous technical hurdles will need to be considered and addressed
as part of the successful implementation of the monitoring plan. Chief
among these are a complex of questions related to selection, placement,
deployment, and retrieval of monitoring gear. For example, many of the
sonar transducers and cameras envisioned in the monitoring plan will
require periodic maintenance, whether scheduled (e.g., lens cleaning)
or unscheduled (e.g., flooded casings). Servicing this equipment likely
will require bringing it to the surface, which presents substantial
challenges related to physical and electrical connections with data and
power cables, subsequent redeployment of the gear, correct orientation
and calibration of redeployed equipment, and similar issues. Snohomish
will pursue a continuing dialogue with technology providers as to
potential methods of addressing and testing each of these issues;
however it is important to note that no method to address these
challenges is currently identified, which may substantially affect
Snohomish's monitoring abilities and technology decisions.
Snohomish believes that many of the technical issues described
above, as well as data interpretation associated with the monitoring
effort, will warrant review and discussion by a technical working
group. This group would oversee and evaluate results of pre-
installation and monitoring studies. These results would be used in
combination with an understanding of the ecosystem and information from
other relevant sources to make adjustments to study methods as
appropriate, and to manage aspects of the project operation in a manner
that avoids or minimizes unexpected or undesirable impacts on
resources. The adaptive management process allows for immediate action
where necessary to address a critical adverse effect of the project
should any occur. Snohomish envisions this as a consensus-based group
that would include representatives from federal and state resource
agencies, tribal governments, and other appropriate stakeholders. It
would administer key topics related to the project, including:
Consideration of results from pre-installation
studies and monitoring efforts and subsequent adjustments to
study methods as appropriate.
Development of monitoring thresholds for inclusion in
Project license conditioning.
Evaluation or initiation of potential mitigation or
impact avoidance measures.
Snohomish believes that the environmental monitoring plan
represents a critical and particularly challenging element of the
overall project. Close collaboration with tribes, agencies, and other
stakeholders; technical support from NNMREC and the Pacific Northwest
National Lab; and the ongoing and strong support from the DOE's
Advanced Water Power Projects program will all be important to the
success of the effort.
Permitting Process, Consultation and Outreach
Snohomish PUD is utilizing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
(FERC) Hydrokinetic Pilot Plant Licensing Process (Pilot Process) for
the Admiralty Inlet project. The Pilot Process was proposed by FERC in
late 2007 specifically to facilitate the licensing of small (rated
capacity of less than 5 megawatts), short-term, removable, and
carefully-monitored projects intended to test marine energy
technologies, sites, or both. FERC recognized that there are a number
of barriers to realizing the potential of these new technologies but
that the primary barrier may be that they are as yet unproven, and that
more data was necessary prior to any large scale commercial
deployments. The purpose of the Pilot Process is to provide a means of
testing new technology, including interconnection with the electric
grid. The process aims to minimize both the up-front baseline study
burden and the risk of adverse environmental effects by requiring a
rigorous project operations monitoring effort, as well as project
shutdown and removal if significant adverse environmental effects occur
and cannot be mitigated.
Snohomish was issued a preliminary permit from FERC for the
Admiralty Inlet site on March 9, 2007, though as early as July of 2006
Snohomish had informed key stakeholders (tribes, state agencies,
federal agencies, NGO's, communities, etc.) of its intention to pursue
tidal energy exploration in the Puget Sound. An initial project meeting
was held with numerous stakeholders (tribes, state agencies, federal
agencies, NGOs) on February 23, 2007 to formally introduce the project,
answer questions, and discuss the consultation approach going forward.
During the approximately two and one-half years since this initial
meeting Snohomish has conducted nearly 90 formal project communication
meetings with various stakeholders. These have included formal
consultation meetings, community town hall meetings, conference
presentations, NGO meetings, and more. Groups who have been engaged
through these efforts have included:
Washington Department of Ecology
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Washington Department of Natural Resources
Washington Governor's Office of Regulatory Assistance
Washington Department of Community, Trade, and
Economic Development
Washington State Attorney General's Office
Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council
U.S. Department of Energy
U.S. Navy Region Northwest
Naval Station Everett
Naval Magazine Indian Island
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
National Marine Fisheries Service
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
U.S. National Park Service
U.S. Coast Guard
Puget Sound Pilots
American Waterways Operators
Puget Sound Harbor Safety Committee
Washington State Ferries
Federal Ocean Research and Resources Advisory Panel
Puget Sound Partnership
Tulalip Tribes of Washington
Suquamish Tribe
Skagit River System Cooperative
Pacific Northwest National Laboratories
The National Renewable Energy Lab
The University of Washington
Washington State University Energy Extension
Seattle Pacific University
People for Puget Sound
The Orca Network
The Whale Museum
The Sea Mammal Research Unit
Beam Reach Marine Science and Sustainability School
Northwest Straits Conservation Alliance
Fort Casey State Park
Ebey's Landing National Historic Preserve
Puget Sound Anglers
Regional county Marine Resources Committees
Regional city councils
Numerous local community and service groups
As indicated by this level of engagement, Snohomish considers
stakeholder outreach and consultation to be a critical element of
project success, and believes that these efforts have been invaluable
in keeping stakeholders informed and in maintaining open lines of
communication for feedback and dialogue. Additionally and where
practical, Snohomish has collaborated with regional stakeholders and
marine experts to design and carry out certain studies. As one example,
Beam Reach Marine Science and Sustainability School, the Whale Museum,
and the Orca Network, all strong regional stewards for killer whales in
Puget Sound, worked with Snohomish to design the project's Marine
Mammal Study Plan and are currently conducting the study in partnership
with the Sea Mammal Research Unit. The Sea Mammal Research Unit is
associated with the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and is
currently engaged with efforts to study sea mammal interactions with
tidal turbines at projects in the UK.
As required by FERC, Snohomish submitted a pre-application document
(PAD) for the project in January 2008. The information provided in the
PAD is intended to enable stakeholders interested in participating in
the licensing process to become familiar with the project before any
formal licensing procedure is initiated and assists these participants
in identifying potential resource issues. The Snohomish PAD consisted
of over 600 pages of information related to the project and project
site and drew upon more than 700 different information sources to
compile. As part of the PAD development effort, Snohomish reached out
to 20 Indian tribes and organizations, 11 federal agencies, 9 state
agencies, 13 Washington ports, 9 counties, 5 municipalities, and 49
non-governmental organizations representing environmental, recreation,
and business interests.
With respect to formal permitting requirements, the following is a
list of the potential regulatory authorizations, licenses, permits, or
regulatory approvals that may ultimately be required prior to
constructing and operating a hydrokinetic project within Washington
State waters:
License from the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission.
Clean Water Act Section 401 Water Quality
Certification from the Washington Department of Ecology.
Marine Mammal Protection Act incidental take permit
from the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Endangered Species Act (ESA) compliance through ESA
Section 7 consultation with the National Marine Fisheries
Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Essential Fish Habitat Program review from the
National Marine Fisheries Service pursuant to the Magnuson-
Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
National Historic Preservation Act Section 106
compliance through consultation with the Washington State
Historic Preservation Officer, as well as the Tribal Historic
Preservation Officer of any affected federally recognized
Indian tribe.
Migratory Bird Treaty Act permit from U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service.
Clean Water Act Section 404 permit from the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers.
Rivers and Harbors Act Section 10 permit from U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers.
U.S. Coast Guard review for navigation impacts under
the Ports and Waterways Safety Act and Coast Guard and Maritime
Transportation Act of 2006.
Water right for a non-consumptive appropriation of
waters of the State.
Hydraulic Project Approval from Washington Department
of Fish and Wildlife.
Aquatic land lease from Washington Department of
Natural Resources.
National Marine Sanctuary permit (for projects
located in National Marine Sanctuaries--will not apply to
Admiralty Inlet).
Minerals Management Services (MMS) lease or right-of-
way for projects located on the federal Outer Continental Shelf
(OCS). If a portion of the project is located outside of waters
of Washington State (or Oregon State) on the federal OCS, then
authorization from the MMS may be required. (Will not apply to
Puget Sound)
Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) Consistency
Certification from Washington Department of Ecology. Under
Washington's CZMA program, activities that require federal
approval and affect any land use, water use or natural resource
of the State's coastal zone must comply with the enforceable
policies within the six laws identified in the CZMA program
document. The six laws are:
the Shoreline Management Act (including local
government shoreline master programs);
the State Environmental Policy Act;
the Clean Water Act;
the Clean Air Act;
the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council; and
the Ocean Resource Management Act.
A key challenge faced by Snohomish and project stakeholders,
particularly resource agencies, is balancing the small size and scope
of the Admiralty Inlet Pilot Project with the level of baseline
information necessary to evaluate the project and satisfy permitting
requirements. As noted earlier, the FERC Pilot Process minimizes the
baseline study burden so as to facilitate the deployment and rigorous
testing of these new technologies, thereby generating the data
necessary to fill existing information gaps. FERC and others recognized
that if baseline information requirements are too burdensome, pilot
projects will never advance into the water and progress in the U.S.
will be at a standstill. We agree with the position of FERC that any
incremental additional risk represented by the Pilot Process approach
is more than adequately contained by the stringent safeguards within
the Pilot Process license, i.e. the license only applies to small,
temporary, closely monitored facilities which are required to be shut
down and/or removed if significant adverse environmental effects occur
and cannot be mitigated.
Some resource agencies, however, perceive that their existing
regulatory accountability precludes their full support of the FERC
Pilot Process. For example, we understand that National Marine
Fisheries Service (NMFS) generally supports the appropriate development
of hydrokinetic projects in United States waters. Nonetheless, given
the presence of endangered salmon and killer whales in Puget Sound,
NMFS feels that they have little latitude to accept anything less than
extremely detailed and rigorous studies in order to support their
environmental analysis. While Snohomish has conducted or committed to
approximately $1 million in pre-installation and baseline studies (the
data from which will add to the already very substantial body of
environmental information available for the Admiralty Inlet site) for
the pilot project, NMFS is reluctant to state with any certainty that
this baseline information is sufficient. Given that these studies
necessarily incur significant cost prior to any certainty of actually
receiving a plant license, it is not difficult to see how the study
burden could easily prevent even small research and development
projects like the proposed Admiralty Inlet effort from going forward.
It seems clear that so long as key resource agencies are not enabled to
effectively balance the proactive facilitation of renewable energy
efforts with their existing responsibilities, the progress of renewable
energy in the U.S. will advance at a pace unlikely to meaningfully
address our country's energy and environmental challenges.
Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today to
discuss this important topic. I would be happy to answer any questions.
Biography for Craig W. Collar, P.E.
Mr. Collar has 25 years of operations and program/project
leadership experience spanning a variety of technical and general
management assignments. Mr. Collar has been accountable for all
business results (safety, quality, energy/environmental, production,
cost, asset management, capital projects, human resource development)
for several major manufacturing departments (up to $60 million annual
operating budget) including the leadership of groups of up to 170 team
members in the production of a variety of consumer products. Mr. Collar
also has multi-year experience leading the overall operation and
maintenance of a 50 MW cogeneration facility as well as that for a
naval submarine nuclear propulsion plant.
Experience
Senior Manager-Energy Resource Development, Snohomish
County Public Utility District No. 1, Everett, WA. (2006-
Present).
Engineering and Operations Management, Kimberly-Clark
Corporation, Fullerton, CA & Everett, WA. (1990-2006).
Nuclear Submarine Officer, U.S. Navy, San Diego, CA
(1985-1990).
Education and Certification
Master of Business Administration, Colorado State
University, Fort Collins, CO.
Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering,
Montana State University, Bozeman, MT.
EAN/Six Sigma and Strategic Organizational Leadership
Certificates, Villanova University, Villanova. PA.
Global Management Certificate, Thunderbird--The
Garvin School of International Management, Glendale, AZ.
Utility Executive Leadership Certificate, Willamette
University, Salem, OR.
U.S. Naval Officer Nuclear Power Training, Orlando,
FL and Idaho Falls, ID (a one-year graduate level program).
Registered Professional Mechanical Engineer.
Chairman Baird. Thank you.
Ms. Schneider.
STATEMENT OF GIA D. SCHNEIDER, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, NATEL
ENERGY, INC.
Ms. Schneider. Thanks very much, Chairman Baird, Ranking
Member Inglis and members of the committee.
I am founder and CEO of a company called Natel Energy and
we are commercializing a new low-head hydropower technology
that has the potential to cut the turbine plus generator costs
of developing low-head projects by as much as 50 percent, and
at the same time, we look to enable safe downstream fish
passage.
Low head is a term of art used in the hydropower industry
to generally reference the amount of drop that you have
available to generate energy at any particular site, and when
we say low head, our particular focus is on sites that have
greater than five feet but less than 20 feet of drop. The
reason why we feel this is a really interesting place to focus
is that there is actually quite a large amount of potential in
low head in this country. According to a DOE study that was
done back in 2004 that categorized separately low-head versus
high-head potential in the country, there are about 71
gigawatts of remaining undeveloped low-head potential in this
country, and in comparison, that represents less than two
percent of the total that has been developed. There are about
73 gigawatts total, and about 71 remain to be developed. That
study actually did not even quantify an additional important
source of low-head hydropower that exists within our existing
manmade structure like irrigation districts, conduits and
canals. There are thousands of miles of these existing canals,
primarily in the western United States. These canals all have
thousands of existing drop structures. Those drop structures
were built specifically to dissipate energy to help make sure
that the water velocities in those canals remained within the
operating constraints of the canals. That is the place where we
could actually, in a pretty straightforward fashion, if we had
effective technology, retrofit those sites to capture energy
and bring that energy onto the grid.
The technical challenge is that, you know, the amount of
power than you can generate at any given site is defined by the
amount of head and the amount of flow. And the particular
technical challenge that has prevented the development of low
head in this country so far is that the technology that exists
today is just very expensive. When you get down to heads that
are less than 20 feet, the design constraints mean that using
conventional technology just becomes way too expensive to
develop these sites and so that is where we focus most of our
innovation.
There also are environmental concerns that have to be
addressed, and just because you have a site that has a small
amount of power output or is low head in nature does not
necessarily mean that that these sites are low impact, so
therefore, responsible siting is absolutely a factor. This is
actually where we think manmade conduits and canals could play
a really interesting role going forward because in a lot of
those settings you could incur very minimal incremental
environmental impact to develop those sites. Many of those low
existing drops are close to roads, close to transmission lines,
doesn't require getting major new transmission infrastructure
to be able to bring this power online.
When you move out of existing canals and move into streams,
your environmental issues absolutely do go up. So when we look
at the 40,000 existing low dams in this country, most of which
also don't produce power, we have to start to look much more
closely at environmental issues with respect to fish passage
and water flow level fluctuations. This is also an area where
development of monitoring technology and tools and R&D support
into quantifying the environmental impact of putting low-head
hydropower on these existing structures would be very valuable.
Beyond that, when you start to look at putting multiple
installations in series, multiple low-head installations in
series looking at multiple low-head dams on a particular river
or stream, the combined impact of those installations also has
to be evaluated, and that is another very important area for
focus for environmental impact study and research.
So what are some of the ways to catalyze innovation in this
space? Well, we actually have received DOE phase I SBIR grants
in the latest stimulus bill funding round and we will use that
to focus on optimizing blade design in our turbines going
forward. This kind of support is absolutely critical. The
technology that we are developing is actually coming in at an
entry cost point that is pretty cost-competitive already. Right
now we look at about eight cents a kilowatt-hour, so we are
already, you know, well within the range of where we can start
to actually develop sites today. At the same time, we think we
can get that down to about five cents a kilowatt-hour. And
further support from the DOE, further grant support to look at
R&D specifically into components to make this technology and
technology such as ours most cost-effective would be greatly
used.
I think the bigger barrier is actually coming on the
environmental side. In the conduit and in manmade canal systems
area, the challenges are a lot less from the environmental side
and the environmental impacts are ones in which, as least
certainly as we are finding talking to irrigation districts, we
can start to get a handle on a lot of that. But as we look to
move into streams, the studies that need to be done to
effectively go through the licensing process to make sure that
sites are chosen responsibly and to provide the data that is
necessary in the licensing process becomes a lot more great,
the burden becomes much greater. And so this is an area where
we think additional funding through the DOE or through other
programs that could focus on helping to collect standardized
environmental impact assessment data and make that data
available would be very useful.
Finally, as private companies such as ourselves and other
companies in this space, in the hydrokinetic and also in marine
technology space as well, a lot of us are spending a fair
amount of our own dollars doing a lot of these kinds of
environmental assessments and so some form of incentive in the
form of perhaps a tax credit could be very useful. It would
help us. We are going to go forward. We have--we make the
business cases through our investors to invest in this
technology as they look forward to the role that these kinds of
technologies could play in addressing our clean energy future.
We are gathering private support, but at the same time, if we
could recoup some sort of return or some sort of offset for
that investment that we are making on our own, that would be
helpful in itself.
In summary, a little bit different from the focus from the
rest of the panelz: Our focus is specifically to talk about
low-head potential. We believe low-head hydropower is actually
the low-hanging fruit, one of the true low-hanging fruit
renewable energy opportunities in this country where we can
bring, distribute renewable baseload power online relatively
quickly. Thanks very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Schneider follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gia D. Schneider
Introduction
Good morning Chairman Gordon, Ranking Member Hall, and members of
the Committee and Subcommittee. My name is Gia Schneider and I am a co-
founder and the chairman and CEO of Natel Energy, Inc. I greatly
appreciate the opportunity to share Natel Energy's story with the
Committee, and to discuss the roles of the federal government and
private industry in developing technologies suitable for low head
hydropower energy generation.
Natel Energy Background
Natel Energy, Inc. is a California and Texas-based company that is
commercializing a new hydropower technology called the Linear
Hydroengine or SLH, which could cut the cost of low-head turbines by as
much as 50%. Our mission is to maximize the use of existing water
infrastructure in the U.S. to bring on-line cost-effective,
distributed, baseload, renewable energy from low head hydropower
sources with minimal negative environmental impacts. Indeed, in certain
cases, we believe the potential exists to implement projects that both
deliver renewable energy and create positive environmental co-benefits.
For example, we are evaluating the potential to incorporate renewable
energy into low dams in the Midwest whose primary purpose is to create
wetlands that trap nutrient pollutants which are a primary cause of the
dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. If we can successfully incorporate low
head hydropower generation into some of these projects, we could create
an additional revenue source for Midwest farmers, bring new renewable
energy onto the grid, and reduce nutrient pollution.
A patent on Natel Energy's core technology was recently approved by
the U.S. Patent Office under application number 11/695,358. Natel's
technology can be packaged into both low head and hydrokinetic
configurations. We have chosen to focus on the low head market for
several reasons. First, the economics of low head settings tend to be
more favorable than hydrokinetic ones simply because the energy density
is greater where a site has even a small amount of head. Second, there
are numerous settings in the U.S. where existing low head
infrastructure could be retrofitted to capture energy that is currently
wasted. These opportunities include low drops and diversion dams in
irrigation canals, water treatment plant outfalls and the approximately
40,000 existing dams less than 25 feet tall in the U.S., the majority
of which do not produce power. Many of these sites with existing
infrastructure are relatively close to roads and transmission lines;
and would incur minimal additional environmental impact by virtue of
being developed.
In-line with our focus on low head potential in existing
infrastructure, our first pilot commercial project is with an
irrigation district called the Buckeye Water Conservation and Drainage
District in Arizona. The project is near the town of Buckeye, which is
west of Phoenix, Arizona. We entered into a joint development agreement
with the irrigation district in 2008, and filed for a FERC Exemption
from Licensing in early 2009. The project received the FERC Exemption
in September 2009; and installation has commenced this week. We hope to
be online and generating electricity next month in January 2010.
We have had discussions with more than 10 other irrigation
districts and several municipal water treatment facilities with
promising sites totaling over 100 MW of potential capacity. We are in
the process of working with them to evaluate their sites to identify
those with the best overall economics. I will discuss the potential we
see for low head hydropower development in this space in the next
section, but suffice it to say that we believe that 100 MW is just the
start--there are over 800 irrigation districts in the U.S.
Natel Energy has been funded to-date by its founders, and by
several committed seed investors. We are in the process of raising a
Series B round of funding, which we hope to close in the first quarter
of 2010. In addition, we are proud to have recently been awarded an
ARRA Phase 1 SBIR grant from the Department of Energy.
Natel Energy is an early-stage company that has its roots in my
family's, in particular my father Dan Schneider's long-standing vision
of environmentally friendly hydropower playing a significant role in
mitigating the impacts of climate change while securing our nation's
future energy needs. My father first thought of the SLH concept in the
first energy crisis in the 1970's and was able to build early, small
prototypes that showed promising efficiency results when tested in
laboratory settings; a hydraulic efficiency of 80% was demonstrated at
tests conducted at the University of California, Davis hydraulics
laboratory in 1979. He then went on to build larger units, using those
early alpha designs, and install them in field settings. The longest
running alpha field unit ran for approximately 2 years. While the
results from those early efforts were promising, the economic rationale
to invest in further development disappeared when the energy crisis
ended, and my father wound down his efforts in the early 1980's.
My brother, Abe, and I grew up tinkering with the early prototypes
and that planted a seed which would later grow. Both of us went on to
college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I was a chemical
engineering major, but decided to work in the energy space after
school, working for Accenture in their energy practice, then
Constellation Power, and then helping start the energy and carbon
trading businesses at the investment bank Credit Suisse. My brother
received both a bachelors and a masters degree in mechanical
engineering from MIT and went on to establish himself in product design
and development, with both large firms like Timken, where he worked in
Advanced Product Development; and small, innovative startups such as
the Google-funded high altitude wind company, Makani Power. Several
years ago, in 2005, my father, Abe and I decided that our current
energy crisis was here to stay, and that we wanted to put our
respective talents to work to help solve America's clean energy
challenge and that led to the start of Natel Energy. We, and the entire
Natel team, feel blessed to work in a field which gives each of us
great personal satisfaction and are committed to the cause of
delivering new, clean energy technologies to America.
Low Head Hydropower Potential, Technology Challenges and Costs
The potential for new low head hydropower development in the U.S.
is quite substantial. The last study done by the Department of Energy
that made a clear distinction between low head and high head potential
was completed in 2004 and estimated the total developable low head
resource at 71 GWa.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ GWa is the annual mean power which is a measure of the
magnitude of a water energy resource's potential power producing
capability equal to the statistical mean of the rate at which energy is
produced over the course of 1 year. GWa can be converted to GW of
installed capacity by dividing by the capacity factor, which on average
is 50% for the U.S. hydropower resource. See DOE study DOE/ID-11111
titled ``Water Energy Resources of the United States with Emphasis on
Low Head/Low Power Resources'' for further details.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The potential is significant, and yet less than 2 GWa of low head
hydropower has been developed in the U.S. to date. In addition, none of
the DOE's analysis includes the low head potential that exists in the
thousands of non-stream low head flows, such as low irrigation drop
structures. Natel estimates that there is between 1 and 5 GW of low
head potential that could be harnessed at low, irrigation drop
structures. Many of these structures are built specifically to
dissipate energy to keep water velocities within the structural
requirements of the irrigation canals.
Before delving further, I would like to lay out several terms
commonly used, but not necessarily with common definitions, in
hydropower. Hydropower is most commonly described in several ways as
follows:
Power generation potential--large, small, micro
Large generally refers to projects greater than 30
MW in size, though sometimes the lower end is stretched
down to 10 MW
Small generally refers to projects anywhere between
100 kW and 10MW, though sometimes the upper end is
stretched to 30 MW
Micro generally refers to projects less than 100 kW
in size
Head available--high, medium, low, hydrokinetic
High head generally refers to projects with large
dams that are over 500 feet tall
Medium head generally refers to projects with
between 30 and several hundred feet of drop
Low head generally refers to projects with less than
20 feet of drop, though some definitions move the low
head upper limit to 30 feet
Hydrokinetic generally refers to projects where
there is no head, and instead the energy is generated
solely from the velocity of the water flow. This is
analogous to the way wind turbines operate.
Type of technology--conventional, unconventional
Conventional technology generally comes in two
types--impulse and reaction turbines. Some common names
of impulse turbines are Pelton and Crossflow; common
names of reaction turbines are Kaplan, Francis,
propeller, bulb, and pit.
Unconventional technology is a catchall bucket for a
number of new turbine designs primarily aimed at
hydrokinetic, marine and low head settings.
This creates a confusing landscape of terms, as they are not
mutually exclusive. However, this can be somewhat simplified by
remembering that for all sites, hydropower generation potential is
defined by two variables--head and flow. Sites with either large flows
or high head will generally create substantial amounts of power. Sites
with both low head and low flows will generate small amounts of power.
The below diagram illustrates the range of potential power across a
hypothetical low head sites with 10 and 20 feet of head and varying
amounts of flow. The photos illustrate the kinds of low head sites that
would generally fall into the flow ranges described.
Some additional low head sites are shown below for further
reference.
Maricopa-Stanfield Irrigation District Drop Structure; 100 cfs; 10
feet head; 200 kW potential
Gila Gravity Canal Headworks; 2,200 cfs max flow; 14 feet head; 2.4
to 5.9 MW potential
U.S. Low Head Hydropower Potential
As mentioned above, the potential for low head hydropower in the
U.S. is significant. There is no one data source that details all
aspects of the low head hydropower potential, but there are several
good sources of data. The U.S. Department of Energy has conducted
several studies of the hydropower potential in the U.S. with the most
recent studies in 2004 and 2006.\2\ The 2004 report specifically
identified low head potential separately from high head; but does not
appear to capture low head potential in man-made channels such as
irrigation districts. The 2006 report dropped the categorization by
head, keeping only categorization by rated power potential. However,
the underlying data for the 2006 report can be queried directly through
a tool developed by the Idaho National Laboratory called the Virtual
Hydropower Prospector.\3\ In addition to the DOE studies, there is a
National Inventory of Dams, which seeks to identify and catalogue all
existing dams in the U.S.\4\ The Department of Interior, U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers and the Department of Energy published a report in
2007 on the hydropower potential at existing federal facilities.\5\
Also in 2007, the electric Power Research Institute published a report
assessing the waterpower potential of the U.S. and development
needs.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ 2004 DOE Report: http://hydropower.inel.gov/resourceassessment/
pdfs/03-11111.pdf, 2006 DOE Report: http://hydropower.inel.gov/
resourceassessment/pdfs/main_report_appendix_a_
final.pdf
\3\ Virtual Hydropower Prospector: http://hydropower.inel.gov/
prospector/index.shtml
\4\ National Inventory on Dams: https://rsgis.crrel.usace.army.mil/
apex/f?p=397:1:128076
6746874154
\5\ DOI/USACE/DOE Report: http://www.usbr.gov/power/data/1834/
Sec1834_EPA.pdf
\6\ EPRI Report: http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/public/
000000000001014762.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Based on data from these sources, the overall estimated 71 GWa of
low head hydropower potential in the U.S. can further be described as
follows. In the below table, low head refers to sites less than 30 feet
tall; low power refers to sites with less than 1 MW of potential. All
numbers in the table below are in MWa.
The site specific data underlying the 2004 DOE report can be
further analyzed using the Virtual Hydropower Prospector to
specifically screen for sites between 5 and 20 feet of head that are
not in wilderness or other excluded areas. This identifies a total of
33.5 GWa of potential across 24,000 sites distributed as shown below.
The equivalent dataset underlying the 2006 DOE report, which
applies a project development model to the potential to identify
developable projects, can be analyzed in a similar fashion. From this
dataset, only sites with between 5 and 20 feet of a head that are not
in wilderness or other excluded areas, and that are less than 1 mile
both from roads and from some portion of the power transmission
infrastructure were selected. This identifies a total of 8 GWa of
potential across 10,100 sites distributed as shown below.
As mentioned previously, neither of these datasets appear to
capture the low head potential in man-made channels and conduits. The
only study I have seen to date specifically focused on the potential in
man-made irrigation canals was done by Navigant in California.\7\ They
identified 255 MW of potential hydropower in man-made channels and
conduits in California. It is interesting to note that the Navigant
study identified more hydro potential in man-made channels and conduits
in California than in in-stream settings in California based on the
screened 2006 DOE data shown above.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Navigant Report on Small Hydro in California: http://
www.energy.ca.gov/2006publications/CEC-500-2006-065/CEC-500-2006-
065.PDF
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The final data set for analyzing low head potential in the U.S. is
to look at existing structures identified in the National Inventory on
Dams. According to the NID, there are over 40,000 existing dams in the
U.S. less than 25 feet tall. Less than 3% of existing dams in the U.S.
generate hydropower and the majority of those power-producing dams are
medium to high head.
Technology Challenges
The technological challenge of generating electricity from water at
low head settings comes from the fact described above that power is a
function of head and flow. At low heads, the only way to scale to
larger power output is to be able to pass larger volumes of water.
Overcoming this hurdle, while keeping costs low and minimizing
environmental impacts, has been the technological barrier to much
development of low head hydropower resources in general.
Environmental Concerns
The environmental concerns for low head hydropower are driven by
the characteristics of the site. Low head hydropower projects developed
in existing, man-made channels or conduits with existing low drops or
diversion structures will tend to have low incremental environmental
impacts. Projects at existing low dams in stream settings will tend to
higher potential impacts than projects in man-made conduits, though the
magnitude of the impact will vary again depending on the setting.
Arguably, putting power generation on existing structures such as locks
and dams, provided that the installations do not interfere with
transport and recreational uses, is another minimal impact kind of
project.
The environmental concerns that projects in river settings will
need to address include:
Fish passage
Water flow modifications, if any
Impacts from any required civil works construction
Disturbed riverbank habitat
However, I believe that low head hydropower projects also have the
potential in certain cases to help address certain environmental
concerns such as nutrient pollution and sediment loading. Indeed, some
existing research indicates that low dams spread across a watershed can
mitigate flooding from runoff of large intense storms and can also
sequester significant amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus. A study
completed in 2004 of a system of 26 low dams across the Red River Basin
in south central Manitoba showed significant and consistent retention
of nitrogen and phosphorous in the small ponds and wetlands created by
the dams over the four years of study. More research needs to be done
to better understand how to truly manage our watersheds to deliver
water for human consumption, for agriculture, for healthy ecosystems,
for power production, and for recreational uses. However, another tool
in the waterpower development toolbox that enables cost-effective low
head hydropower development will have great use in many settings that
do not have a high degree of environmental sensitivity.
Costs
A major factor inhibiting the development of America's hydropower
resources on man-made conduit or water conveyance systems and existing
low head, non-powered dams has been the high cost of available
turbomachinery. Conventional low-head waterpower technology, such as
Kaplan turbines and similar devices (bulb, tube, and even propeller
turbines) has proven to be too costly for widespread market adoption.
For example, several recent surveys of low-head hydropower plants built
with Kaplan turbines have reported values of over $2,800/kW for the
electromechanical equipment alone, given a 100 kW turbine operating
with 3 meters of head (Singal 2008, Ogayar 2009).\8\ \9\ Natel's own
survey of a variety of quotes from Kaplan turbine manufacturers
indicates that the real market prices might be even higher. A surface
fit following the same methodology disclosed by Ogayar, but using
turbine quotes compiled from a range of feasibility studies conducted
for low head sites, results in a predicted price of roughly $4,200/kW
for a 100 kW Kaplan turbine at 3 meters of head.\10\ Unfortunately for
prospective low-head waterpower project developers, these numbers
represent only the electromechanical equipment component of initial
capital cost, covering the turbine runner, wicket gates, draft tube,
generator, control system, and switchgear. Often, civil works and other
project costs might equal or exceed the electromechanical component,
leading to total installed costs which require extremely high capacity
factors, high electricity prices, or both, to justify plant investment.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Ogayar, B., P.G. Vidal. Cost determination of the electro-
mechanical equipmentof a small hydro-power plant. Renewable Energy
2009;34:6-13.
\9\ Singal, S.K., R.P. Saini. Analytical approach for development
of correlations for cost of canal-based SHP schemes. Renewable Energy
2008;33:2549-2258.
\10\ Turbine quotes compiled from feasibility studies including:
http://library.wrds.uwyo.edu/ims/Park.html; T3http://
www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/hydro-power_feasibilty_study_july2009;
T3http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/public/TR-112350-V2.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the primary reasons for the high cost of conventional
turbomachinery is the complex blade shape of conventional turbine
runners. According to the Electric Power Research Institute, the cost
of a Kaplan runner may exceed 50% of the electromechanical component
cost.\11\ This is an indication of the complexity and fine
manufacturing precision by which Kaplan turbine runners are
characterized, but also is indicative of an opportunity for innovation
in reducing an important barrier to low head hydropower development:
cost.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Gray, D. Hydro Life Extension Modernization Guides Volume 2:
Hydromechanical Equipment, TR-112350-V2 Final Report, August 2000.
EPRI.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For comparative purposes, the table below describes the economics
for a 1 MW site with 10 feet of head using current conventional turbine
costs, Natel's current SLH cost; and Natel's projected SLH cost at
full-scale commercial operation. For the purposes of this comparison,
all non-electromechanical costs are assumed to remain the same and are
set at $1.48M--this would cover civil works, permitting, interconnect,
etc. In addition, the capacity factor is assumed to be the same in all
three cases and is set to 65%. For clear illustrative purposes, the
payback time period is calculated using a 10 cents/kWh power price
with no project leverage and no incentives (no Production Tax Credit or
renewable energy credits).
The purpose of the above table is simply to highlight that there is
room for innovation in low head waterpower technology, and that
innovation, if successful at lowering costs while keeping environmental
impacts low, will enable the addition of significant new renewable
generation to the grid. We have developed one new technology and there
are a number of other companies working hard to innovate in the low
head, marine and hydrokinetic space as well.
Areas where federal support would useful
The following kinds of federal support would help to reduce costs
and transition our technology, and other innovative waterpower
technologies more quickly into the market:
RDD&D guidance and funding support to help reduce
some of the costs of demonstrating and scaling up new low head
waterpower technologies;
Specific grant funds and research focused on better
understanding the environmental issues for low head projects,
particularly in river settings;
Testing facilities for measuring the environmental
and operational performance of new waterpower technologies;
Tax credits or other incentives for companies
investing in studies or monitoring programs that gather
environmental performance data at installed new waterpower
technology power projects;
Beyond the immediate RDD&D needs:
A long term extension of the Production Tax Credit
(PTC) and Clean Renewable Energy Bond (CREB) programs
would foster investment in retrofitting the many
existing low head, non-power structures to produce new,
distributed, baseload, renewable energy, by encouraging
private sector investment and providing low cost
financing to public entities such as most irrigation
districts;
Section 45 Production Tax Credit parity for all low
head hydropower, hydrokinetic, marine and other
innovative water power technologies;
Inclusion of all low head hydropower, hydrokinetic,
marine and other innovative water power technologies at
existing, non-powered dams in a federal Renewable
Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS).
Closing
I would like to thank the Committee again for inviting me to
testify and for its attention to the issues before the Committee. It
has been a pleasure to appear before the Committee today and Natel
Energy stands ready to work with the Committee in the future as needed.
America is in a position to lead the world in clean energy technology
development, but only by taking decisive action we will catch and
surpass our international counterparts in waterpower technology
development. In so doing, we, and many other innovative companies like
us, will create new manufacturing and power sector jobs and help pave
the way towards a clean, secure energy future for America while
tackling the environmental issues we face as a country in an
increasingly competitive world.
Thank you for your time.
Contact Information
If the members of the Committee or their staff would like
additional information, please do not hesitate to contact Natel Energy
at your convenience. Contact information is found below.
Gia Schneider
Chairman & CEO
917 558 2718
[email protected]
Biography for Gia D. Schneider
Gia Schneider is the acting CEO of Natel Energy, Inc., which is
commercializing a new, low-head hydropower technology that will cut the
non-civil works cost of developing low head projects by as much as 50%.
She is also a partner at EKO Asset Management and has extensive
experience in the renewable energy and climate sectors. Previously, she
worked in the Energy Trading Group at Credit Suisse where she helped
start the carbon emissions desk. Prior to Credit Suisse, she worked in
the Strategy Group at Constellation, a leading power generation
company, and as a consultant with Accenture where she developed and
implemented trading and risk management solutions for the utility
industry. Gia received her bachelor of science degree in chemical
engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has a
long standing interest in climate change, sustainable development and
renewable energy.
Discussion
Chairman Baird. Thank you very much, Ms. Schneider.
Excellent testimony, not surprising, given the backgrounds of
the distinguished witnesses. I will recognize myself for five
minutes and then we will proceed in alternating order. We have
been joined by Mr. Davis, Mr. Tonko and previously--oh, there
he is, the number one expert on wave energy in the U.S.
Congress, Mr. Rohrabacher. I say that because he is our surf
advocate. I hear that Bilbray is a better surfer, however. But
he is very passionate about the ocean.
The Problem of Outsourced Manufacturing and Test Beds
A number of questions come up, more than I could possibly
cover in five minutes but I will start with a few. One of the
issues is, it is very troubling. Mr. Dehlsen, you talked about
it, and Mr. Bedard, you alluded to it. I am so frustrated to
see U.S.-developed technology consistently, the initial
technology, developed here and then capitalized and engineered
elsewhere, then manufactured elsewhere. We are seeing it here
again apparently. One of the limitations in addition to some of
the environmental issues that Mr. Collar and Ms. Schneider
mentioned, it seems to me that the test beds right now are
elsewhere. We don't have yet, that I know of in place on either
coast, a reliable place where if I am a manufacturer of some
equipment I can say okay, I am going to work with FERC and DOE,
we are going to ship it out there, drop it in the water and see
what it does. What is being done to do that, Mr. Bedard? You
talked about some potential facilities. What is being done and
how is the government helping with that at the federal level
and what can we do better?
Mr. Bedard. What is being done is that just last year--I am
sorry. I will take that back. The fiscal year 2008
appropriation initiated some national marine energy centers,
specifically Oregon State University on wave, University of
Washington on tidal, University of Hawaii on both OTEC and
wave, and Florida Atlantic University, I believe, received--is
receiving an earmark on ocean currents. So this country, we are
just starting. Europeans are 10 years in front of us. Their
governments have established test facilities that have been in
place now for more than five years. So we have started. What we
need is, as I said, consistent, long-term, sustained support to
these test facilities so that developers do have places to go
and put their machines into the water and develop the
technology as step one. And then once that prototype gets
developed, we then need to have systems test facilities, much
like PG&E and Snohomish are doing, with a fully integrated grid
connected array of systems.
Pace of Test Bed Development
Chairman Baird. When we will have these test beds ready to
go?
Mr. Bedard. In a number of years. It is really uncertain
because of the regulatory issues associated with--we have to
even permit these test beds and so there is uncertainty in
terms of when--there are literally dozens of regulatory
agencies that have to be dealt with.
Chairman Baird. Okay. That is very helpful. That is
consistent with the concerns of Mr. Collar.
Keys to Expediting Projects
Mr. Collar, let me follow up on that regulatory issue
because it seems that the test bed issue--as I have read your
testimony and listened to you, it seems that this test bed
issue is central. Mr. Dehlsen talked about the reliability of
funding. You know, this annual extension of the production tax
credit is not going to cut it. We need a sustainable,
predictable situation including tax incentives. But this
regulatory environment issue is very, very central. Talk to us
a little bit about what you think we ought to do, Mr. Collar.
Mr. Collar. It really is one of the key challenges to
moving these kinds of projects forward, and I think a lot of it
is because really again that lack of data. It is very much a
chicken or the egg kind of a situation. It is difficult to get
projects like this permitted because there is no data and you
can't get the data because you can't get the project permitted
to get it into the water to generate that information. So I
think again it is finding ways to strike that balance within
the agencies between the facilitation of renewable energy and
fully meeting their existing responsibilities and
accountability. You know, one of the ways that we seek to do
that with our project is via the very small, contained scale of
the project. We wouldn't advocate nor would anyone else that we
are aware of, you know, the installation of many, many turbines
in a place like Admiralty Inlet before we first installed one
or two and learned from those devices. But until we do that and
until we can do that in a reasonable way in terms of both cost
and resources and effort, it is going to be very difficult to
move beyond that stage.
So I think one of the things is to come to grips or gain
good alignment with the agencies around, you know, what is an
appropriate amount of risk to take with some of these early
projects? But the experts that we talked to in the Puget Sound
would say the risk of our project is almost vanishingly small
but it is not zero, and I think that sometimes the agencies
really have discomfort until they can really see zero risk.
Species Safety
Chairman Baird. Are you dealing with ESA (Endangered
Species Act) issues? I mean, is this--the question for me is,
so what is the problem, you know, given the model you talked
about and the tiny scale, and I understand the baseline data. I
am proud to be a scientist and happy to be on this Committee,
but what is it you are--I have been told you have to have at
least a year of baseline data before you put something in the
water. Is that accurate?
Mr. Collar. At least a year. There certainly has been
pressure to have much more than that, and it is also a degree
of to what level of detail the data needs to be.
Chairman Baird. What is the specific concern? Is it that we
just don't know what the concern is because we haven't done it
yet or are we saying well, we are expecting salmon or sturgeon
or ground fish, or what is the story?
Mr. Collar. The most specific and the largest concerns in
Puget Sound, Admiralty Inlet in particular, are the effects of
installations like this on ESA-listed species, particularly
orca and salmon. Those are the key species. So really, that is
the question that we are grappling with now is, what is the
right degree of information in terms of the currents' behavior
or abundance of salmon species and orca in Admiralty Inlet? And
of course, there is a lot of information, historical
information available relative to those questions, so it is
really, how much more do you need before you can go forward
with a project like the one we propose?
Turbine Design
Chairman Baird. Ms. Schneider, I grew up in canal country,
western Colorado. It was irrigated and we used to boogie board
on those canals. It was pretty dangerous. Periodically one of
our friends would disappear. It was kind of a bad deal. But it
seems to me that there is a lot of potential for this. Have you
actually got--is this just a more efficient turbine design? I
don't remember seeing in your testimony a picture. Maybe it is
proprietary and you don't want to share with us lest we branch
out in new career paths.
Ms. Schneider. No, no, no.
Chairman Baird. What does this look like?
Ms. Schneider. It actually doesn't look like any kind of
conventional rotary turbine that you have seen. The technical
term for it would be called a two-stage fully flooded impulse
turbine.
Chairman Baird. Oh, yeah, I knew that.
Ms. Schneider. So it is a new turbine. It is a new turbine
design, and the specific aspects of it are, basically it has
very simple blades which kind of allows us to drive down costs.
So cost of manufacture is a lot lower than conventional
reaction turbines, the other conventional technology, and at
the same time the generating side is fairly--the generator
interface is fairly efficient because it actually has what is
called a high specificity, without getting into too much
technical terms.
Chairman Baird. Vern will explain all this later to us.
Ms. Schneider. But, I mean, we have an installation that is
going forward actually with an irrigation district in Arizona.
We just started installation at the beginning of this week so
we have been through the FERC exemption process, received the
FERC exemption in September, and that should be online and
generating electricity hopefully in January.
Chairman Baird. That is exciting. Thank you.
I recognize Mr. Inglis for five minutes.
Mr. Inglis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I found it interesting, Ms. Schneider and Mr. Collar both
spent some time discussing the impact on species. It is worth
paying some attention to that. It is also worth paying
attention to if you consider the ocean acidification problem
related to the incumbent fuels, the tradeoffs in life, and we
might should put pedal to the metal and--``might should'', that
is the way we say it down in South Carolina.
Chairman Baird. That is right good.
Mr. Inglis. So it is interesting that both of you spent
considerable time trying to allay those concerns but if you
compare it to the other concerns, it is really rather small so
pedal to the metal.
Combining Wave and Wind Technologies
Mr. Dehlsen, we are the happy beneficiaries of all your
work. I didn't realize we had you to thank, but I thank you for
having--General Electric is in our district, makes wind
turbines, and there are 1,500 engineers and 1,500 production
people, some which work on wind, some on gas turbines, but--so
you are the father of that and we thank you. So for any of you,
what do you think about the possibility of combining wave
barges with wind barges such that you get a two-fer out of the
lines, I guess, running back to shore? Is this possible?
Mr. Dehlsen. We are looking at that actually for projects
in the U.K. Clipper Windpower is currently in advanced
engineering 10-megawatt offshore wind turbine for deployment in
U.K. waters, and we believe that for every turbine that goes
in, we could probably deploy three wave devices of the type
that we are in design on. Those are each four and a half
megawatts, so for every 10 megawatts' worth of infrastructure
that you are putting in, you pick up another thirteen and a
half megawatts of wave energy. We think it is quite a nice way
to bring down the cost of energy by combining the two
technologies.
Mr. Inglis. In part what you are doing in some of those
designs is using the weight of the apparatus, right, as the
tide drops to move turbines or something so that you basically
end up getting the benefit from the weight of all the stuff you
got up on doing the wind. Is that--have I got that right? Is
that one of the designs?
Mr. Dehlsen. There are designs like that. Ours is one where
between the turbines, which are centered on about 1,200 meters,
you would accommodate three of what we call a centipod wave
generator, which are very long barges there, about 650 feet
long and have 56 pods on each side so they are fully exposed to
the wave front and can yaw into the wave front. It is quite an
unusual design actually.
Mr. Inglis. So you use the motion through that barge
apparatus to create the energy?
Mr. Dehlsen. That is right, through the pods moving up and
down while the barge itself, and it is really not a barge. It
is a lattice, open lattice structure that allows the wave to
pass through it, and as the wave passes through it causes the
pods go up and down, drive hydraulic fluid through to drive a
hydroelectric system.
Mr. Inglis. Yeah, interesting.
Mr. Bedard.
Mr. Bedard. There is also another benefit in addition to
the cost two-foe that you mentioned, and that is the fact that
you have two resources that have variability to them and you
put those two together and you get less variability. There are
less number of hours with no resource available when you have a
hybrid wind-wave system than either a single wind or wave
system. I tried to sell one of our EPRI feasibility studies a
couple of years ago on that very topic and was told by all of
the state energy agency and utility potential clients that I
tried to sell that I was 25 years ahead of my time.
Mr. Inglis. Yes. Of course, the thing that I hope that you
are prophetic there and maybe ahead of your time but hopefully
people will catch up with you is that it is economics that will
drive this. If it is economically viable, then it will be
deployed. I learned a great new definition of sustainability
from an entrepreneur in Spartanburg, South Carolina, who
recycles PET (Polyethylene-terephthalate) to make bottles
again. He says the definition of sustainability is making a
profit, and I think that is a very good definition. If you can
make a profit, it is sustainable. If you can't, it is not, and
so that is what we need to be focused on is figuring out how
you can get two-fers or three-fers and so it makes sense
economically.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Baird. Thank you.
I recognize--who is on deck? Mr. Davis was next in line.
Comparing Economic Costs and Benefits of Energy Technologies
Mr. Davis. As we engage in this debate that we have had for
some time on all different types of sources of energy and we
continue to find new sources that we believe will be
alternatives and renewables and less expensive, oftentimes we
don't compare the cost of the current methods of producing
energy and our cleaning up maybe some of those pollutants that
we have such as coal or look at natural gas or look at other
sources. We seem to get a great deal of excitement about
sources of energy that may or may not produce an abundance or
at least close to the same amount of energy for a similar cost
as what we produce today. So I think that as we engage in these
conversations, the hearing we are having today is certainly
good for us, this Nation to be having these hearings. But I
would like to hear more from each of you. When you take a
kilowatt being produced today, what would it cost for the same
and how quickly can this be put online to where we can start
using this to benefit economically and job creation? How quick
can this happen, how soon can we expect to see benefits from
this and how costly will it be compared to what we produce
today? That is basically my comment that I want to make. Can
anyone answer that question?
Mr. Beaudry-Losique. Thank you for the question. I would
say it is fairly important for us to always consider a balanced
portfolio of technologies, some of those being near term and
being able to deploy and make a difference. We are working on
some of those, technologies. For example, at DOE like land-
based wind, for example, and some elements of solar
technologies. So it is important to not neglect longer-term
very large sources of energy that could also make a difference
10 or 20 years from now. I believe this is one of the roles of
government. Some of these resources could include offshore wind
and some of these marine and hydrokinetic resources, and I
think the question is, how do we strike the right balance with
near-term technologies that can make a difference and long-
term, very large-scale sorts of technologies? And I mentioned a
couple here. And also how do you compare these technologies to
the cost of existing technology? Will that improve versus
existing technology? Are we chasing technology that will never
be competitive? And I would say we are currently going through
a strategic planning exercise at DOE to address precisely that
question and see if we can optimize or improve our portfolio of
technology while we strive to do so.
Mr. Davis. I have a situation in Kingston, Tennessee, that
perhaps everyone in this room or certainly if you watched TV in
the last year would be aware that there was a huge ash spill at
the Kingston steam plant. We are told it will probably cost
close to $1 billion plus for that cleanup that will go on the
bills of almost 8 million users in the Tennessee Valley to help
pay for that cost. That is a substantial amount of money that
we have deferred for the last 30 or 40 years. And so as we
engage in this debate, it is my hope that we look at every
situation, alternatives, renewables and others, about whether
or not this will help us get away from that situation. I asked
the TVA officials and others if we were to take that billion
dollars and build a solar farm in Tennessee, what percentage of
the energy being produced at the steam plant could we produce
with that billion-dollar investment, and I am told somewhere
between 12 to 25 percent of energy that would be a renewable
source. So as we engage--the reason I ask the question and made
the comment is, as we engage in the conversation, it seems that
we from time to time don't look at the actual total cost of
what the cost would be to us 10 years, 20, 30 years or 40 years
down the road. I hope as we engage in this debate as we
continue to have hearings here and in other committees in the
House that we become a little bit more focused on the proposals
we are making and how successful they would be or is this just
a new concept or idea that may or may never work.
Thank you all, and thanks, Mr. Chairman, for having the
hearing.
Chairman Baird. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
Mr. Ehlers.
Hydrokinetic Potential in the Great Lakes
Mr. Ehlers. Being from Michigan, are there any
opportunities for hydrokinetic energy in Lake Michigan or some
of the other Great Lakes? We are talking about putting wind
energy in the middle of the lake far enough from shore so no
one can see it but visible enough so boats won't run into it.
Are there any hydrokinetic energy possibilities in the Great
Lakes or is it just not worth the trouble? Mr. Bedard?
Mr. Bedard. Yes, most probably. We have not studied it but
most probably just from the basic understanding there is not a
hydrokinetic potential in the Great Lakes. For wave energy one
needs to have a long distance of ocean, a long fetch of ocean
where the winds blow across that to build up the waves, and the
Great Lakes are big but they are just not as big as the Pacific
Ocean, and certainly there is no tidal energy, there is no
current flow. Now, there are potential locations where the
lakes flow when the water flows out of the lakes like they do I
know in upstate New York, for using hydrokinetic energy. I
wouldn't look in the lake but I would like where the water
flows out of the lake.
Low Head Hydropower
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you.
I also want to mention this is really solar energy, and we
might as well identify the source correctly. I think solar has
immense possibilities in many different manifestations. When
you mention solar, people automatically think of photoelectric
cells and things like that but there are tremendous
opportunities created by the wind, and this is just another
manifestation of that. You talked about low head. How big is a
low head? When you say low head, I immediately think of a
submerged restroom but I don't think that is what you are
talking about. How big a head is low head?
Ms. Schneider. Well, low head in the context that we are
focused on, it would be a drop across a structure that is less
than 20 feet, but in general greater than five, and the reason
for the cutoff is five is just when we run economic analysis on
a number of sites, once you get below five feet it just is
very, very hard.
Other Promising Technologies
Mr. Ehlers. And a lot of effort appears to be going into
developing appropriate turbines for this. Is that the best way
to get energy, or can you just anchor something, the generator
to the ocean bottom and the up-and-down motion of the waves? Is
there any possibility of somehow extracting energy from the up-
and-down motion of the waves rather than the lateral motion?
Any comment on that? Mr. Bedard?
Mr. Bedard. Yes, there are many different ways to convert
either the potential or kinetic energy in waves. Many of the
devices do work by using totally the potential energy, the up-
and-down motion of a floating buoy that is then reacted either
to the bottom or to a reactionary plate which is submerged in
the water column, so yes, many devices work through the up-and-
down motion of the waves.
Mr. Ehlers. And which appears to be most promising at this
point?
Mr. Bedard. We are not far enough along in the technology
to know which of the different energy conversion devices will
turn out to be most cost-effective in the future. Wind has
obviously gotten there. You look at the wind machines. They are
all open rotor, three-bladed, you know, machines on a mono
pile. With wave energy, we are just not there yet. We need to
test and evaluate the different energy conversion devices
first.
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you very much. Yield back.
Chairman Baird. Mr. Ehlers, thank you.
Mr. Tonko.
Lessons from Verdant Power in New York State
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning to our
panelists, and Mr. Bedard, thank you for mentioning the
turbulent flow of waters in upstate New York. That is part of
my district area.
Prior to arriving here as a freshman this year in Congress,
I served as president and CEO of NYSERDA, New York State Energy
Research and Development Authority, which as you know has this
demonstration project, had the demonstration project along the
East River along the island of Manhattan with Verdant Power's
project, and they did disassemble that project for improvements
and sent it over to the Colorado lab of DOE, and I believe we
are back up and running, or not. Okay. We are supposed to be.
But anyhow, I just want to know what Snohomish--perhaps Mr.
Collar or Mr. Bedard or whomever on the panel might address
your comments to what might have been learned from Verdant
Power's project in that East River demonstration.
Mr. Collar. Certainly. I think there are a number of
things. First of all, you really have to applaud Verdant, I
think, for the effort, really blazing the trail here in a lot
of ways for efforts like ours. So, I mean, a couple of things
that were learned were in terms of deployment methodology in
relatively shallow water. Folks might assume that this would be
a relatively simple and straightforward evolution. It is not.
It is very difficult even in places like the East River, so
there is some learning there obviously in terms of the
robustness and the design of the turbines themselves and the
blades in particular. You know, you are going to have some
failures like that along the road so, you know, learning from
those and sharing that learning through efforts like the DOE's
programs is important and has occurred. And then lastly, I
think we also learned a fair bit in terms of monitoring
technologies for monitoring the interaction of fish and marine
life with turbines like the Verdant turbines, specifically in
that case using the BiosSonics hydroacoustic technology. There
were some parts of that that worked really well and there were
some parts that we would choose to do differently in the
future, so those would probably be the top three things that I
would point out.
Mr. Tonko. As I understand it, it was not just the blades
of that design but also the assembly, the assemblage of the
blades that had to be improved on.
Mr. Bedard, were you going to comment on that?
Mr. Bedard. I was going to add, sir, that Verdant completed
their experimental phase about six months ago and they took the
six units out. They got lots of good environmental data. They
have now filed a draft license application with FERC to go to
the next phase, which is installation of 30 of the units, about
one megawatt of rated power, and so they will be in the
regulatory process now for another year or two years before
they hopefully get the license to install their next generation
of turbine in that same location between Roosevelt Island and
Queens in about two more years.
Mr. Tonko. And it was interesting to see what that meant to
the Roosevelt Island population with some of the power that was
exchanged for them. It is hoped that as much as 1,100 kilowatts
worth of power could be utilized in kinetic format in New York
State, so it is rather encouraging to see the promise that it
holds. And in terms of the PUD plan here with Snohomish, just
how--what are your plans to interconnect the tidal project to
the main grid?
Mr. Collar. They actually intend to connect on Whidbey
Island, which is adjacent to our site. Specifically we are
working with Seattle Pacific University. In fact, their marine
science lab is right on the shores where we would interconnect,
so currently we are in dialog with them about rebuilding their
marine science lab into one facility that can both serve their
educational purposes as well as our need for onshore
infrastructure and provide them with a pretty neat educational
opportunity to leverage the results of our project to fulfill
their mission.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Chairman Baird. Mr. Rohrabacher.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I
am sorry I missed the first three witnesses. And Mr. Bedard, I
remember JPL and--
Mr. Bedard. Yes, sir, I worked on Mars Rover back in the
late 1980s.
Cost Competitiveness of MHK Technologies
Mr. Rohrabacher. I remember visiting you there once, I
believe.
I don't think the question about cost was answered
correctly, fully. I would like to--obviously if we are
developing an energy resource that has to be of competitive
cost in some way or it is just--we are just playing games here,
so we are going to create technology in order to create
technology when it is going to be integrated into an energy
system that has other factors as well that cost. How will
this--once we develop these technologies that you are talking
about, how competitive will it be as compared to other sources
of electricity?
Mr. Dehlsen. The technologies we are working on I believe
can be in the 10- to 12-per-kilowatt-hour range, and we are
pretty confident on those numbers. It is really a function of
how much steel goes into the machine versus how much power you
can generate. Yes, you have cost for mooring and that sort of
thing but that is the main driver, and--
Mr. Rohrabacher. How would that be interpreted in terms of,
oil would have to come to a certain barrel price in order to
permit the electricity to be--for you to be competitive with
electricity. What would that be?
Mr. Dehlsen. Well, carbon fuels are in the range of about
four to seven cents per kilowatt-hour but that is without
counting the external costs.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Mr. Dehlsen. So if you give credit for that, which is a
point that came up earlier, these technologies would be
competitive.
Impacts on Scenic Views
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. One of the things that I have
noticed, seeing that I live along the coast and I spent a lot
of time in the water, that--and although that is the case, I
have also been supportive of offshore oil and gas development,
that wealthy people tend to live near water and they tend not
to want to have their view disturbed and their view is more
important than energy for the people. Would your alternatives
create a view problem for people?
Mr. Dehlsen. Certainly wind provides a very strong visual
impact but what I think I have been saying anyway is that
people now are starting to understand that there are priorities
beyond the view aspect.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I would hope so. You know, I would really
hope that some of the people who are the most--have really
enjoyed the fruits and benefits of our society would be a
little bit more considerate of everybody else rather than just
worrying about their view, seeing that we have about a trillion
dollars worth of energy in terms of oil and gas that we should
be utilizing offshore, but I would hate to see situations like
great alternatives in the future--look, 100 years from now
whether it is 10 years from now or 100 years from now, the type
of ideas you are going to bring up are things that mankind is
going to have to depend upon and you may be exploring an area
that is really 100 years from now we may get vast amounts of
energy from what you are doing and might be dependent upon that
far more than we are on oil and gas.
Mr. Dehlsen. I would hope so.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I would hope so. That is correct. So Mr.
Chairman, thank you for your leadership in this. I see this as
a visionary approach which I think that we should be exploring
and I wish you all success.
Chairman Baird. Thank you for your observations and
insights.
Mr. Inslee is recognized. Thanks for joining us today, Mr.
Inslee.
Progress to Date and the Power Density of MHK
Mr. Inslee. Thank you, and thanks, Mr. Chairman, for
holding this hearing. This is something we are looking in the
future and I appreciate your willingness to explore this. It is
something that hasn't totally arrived commercially and your
willingness to do this I am very appreciative of. I am also
appreciative of Mr. Ehlers' insight that all this is solar
power except nuclear and engineered geothermal. I think that is
a great insight. He is the only other Congressman that I have
heard share that other than this one, so thanks, Mr. Ehlers.
Mr. Collar, welcome, and Mr. Dehlsen, I want to thank you
for being the personification of what I view as a dynamic here
which basically is following wind into the water as far as the
dynamic, the economic dynamic. You are the absolute
personification of that. You may not remember but you and I
spoke a couple years ago when I was writing a book and you told
me an interesting story about Clipper Wind and the development
of wind power about a bolt that broke. Do you want to share
that? It is kind of a metaphor for what we are talking about
here. Do you remember the story?
Mr. Dehlsen. Well, I remember one in the very beginning of
wind power and it was the first wind conference in Palm
Springs, and there was a lot of excitement around a machine
that Bendix had put out that was a Darius machine. It looked
like a big egg beater. Everybody had gathered out there to
watch the machine perform. A bolt gave out and fortunately it
could have decapitated the whole crowd, but that was one of
the, kind of the early lessons on structures and how these
things have to really have pretty rigorous kind of engineering.
Mr. Inslee. Well, I appreciate the story, and the reason
is, is despite that failure, the industry is now very
commercially viable and robust and is the most dynamic thing in
the energy industry probably right now, and I sense that that
is the kind of experience we are going to have in the
hydrokinetic field. You said something that was interesting,
that you were optimistic about this, and maybe it was you or
Mr. Bedard, I am not sure, that the density of energy
associated with water as compared to wind may give this
industry a faster up tick than wind. Do you want to elaborate
on that, whichever one of you was that said that?
Mr. Bedard. That was myself, Mr. Inslee, and the point I
was making was that the fact that the power density of the
hydrokinetic resource is much, much greater than that for wind
and solar. That allows smaller machines with less material and
capital cost--there is a potential capital cost advantage of a
hydrokinetic machine, say, compared to a wind or solar machine
but there is another side to that coin, and the other side is
that it is operating in a very remote, hostile environment so
the challenge to the marine hydrokinetic industry is going to
be to develop the deployment technology and the operation and
maintenance technology that will allow the total lifecycle cost
to be less than or competitive to other renewable sources.
2009 Stimulus Funding for MHK
Mr. Inslee. Thank you.
Mr. Beaudry-Losique, I am sorry, I don't know if that is
the correct pronunciation, we are so far a little bit
disappointed in the stimulus funding. We haven't seen any of
the stimulus funding dedicated to this particular industry. Do
you have any insights on that? Do we have some hope in that
regard?
Mr. Beaudry-Losique. I would say the Recovery Act mandates
are fairly specific. Their focus was on creating jobs that
would have short-term impact. Regarding the allocation to the
water budget, we felt that traditional hydro projects could be
put in operation fairly shortly and that there was no truly
immediate device that was ready to go at a commercial scale for
marine hydrokinetics and that our R&D budget for hydrokinetics
is fairly plentiful right now, and we have what we need.
The Importance of Consistent Federal Support
Mr. Inslee. Well, we will continue to kind of provide you
some additional resources, and I am appreciative of the vision
that the Department has shown and hope it will continue. One of
the things, I have introduced a bill and we are looking forward
to reintroduction of a bill that would establish a dedicated
department really for this particular technology and
hydrokinetic. I think it would helpful in focusing, and the
reason I note that is, I think almost all of the witnesses
talked about the importance of stability in federal policy of a
long-term federal commitment that is not dependent on the
personnel that happens to sit in a particular chair for three
or four years, it is not dependent on who the majority is in
Congress but it is a long-term federal commitment, and I think
the establishment of an office would go a long way to helping
in that regard and I look forward to talking to Members and the
Chair about that. I hope we can advance that. Thank you very
much.
Chairman Baird. Thank you, Mr. Inslee, and thank you for
your many years of leadership on not only this particular form
of energy but the whole issue of alternative energy and your
book, which you brought with you. What is the title of that
book, Mr. Inslee?
Mr. Inslee. Well, I appreciate your efforts, but I don't
know if I can put you in the five percent plan for marketing,
Mr. Chair. I appreciate that.
Chairman Baird. Mr. Inslee wrote an outstanding book,
Apollo's Fire, and it is an outstanding compendium, a bit dated
because the transitions are happening so fast, but very few
Members of Congress know as much about this topic as Mr.
Inslee, and thank you for your leadership on that.
Mr. Inslee. If I can note, though, I just want to note, Mr.
Dehlsen was one of the most interesting people I met in the
production of this book and I remember very specifically
getting to talk to him about this story, and Mr. Dehlsen, I
want to thank you for your leadership now on multiple
technologies. We really appreciate it.
Chairman Baird. Are there any other members that are
wishing for me to plug their book? I would be happy to at this
point.
Permitting and Regulatory Structure
Let me follow up. I would like to do a brief second round.
We may have some votes coming up. Mr. Beaudry-Losique, we have
heard a lot about this issue of permitting and regulatory
structure. Has your operation sat down with MMS (minerals
management service) and the other regulatory bodies and said
how can we work together, what changes do you need, how do we
make those changes happen, and if you haven't, can we do that?
Mr. Beaudry-Losique. We are working with other agencies on
a lot of our different renewable technologies. I would say this
is a problem that is not unique to marine and hydrokinetics. It
is shared by offshore wind. It is shared to some extent with
solar deployment on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) lands. It
is shared by on-land wind as well. So we have had numerous
discussions with the Department of Interior, with FERC, within
the Department of Interior. We are working specifically with
MMS, which has a lot of the jurisdiction offshore for speeding
up permitting both for offshore wind and for marine and
hydrokinetics technology. We hope to have a memorandum of
understanding in place with them shortly. But I would
completely agree with my fellow panel participants that this is
a very serious issue and that we are putting a lot of resources
against it. Furthermore, we are doing a lot of the
environmental studies to help pre-permit these marine research
energy centers so we can have test beds to plug in small-scale
marine devices fairly quickly, and that is part of our funding
is actually to establish that pre-permitting that would help
speed up testing these technologies.
Chairman Baird. I have done a lot of work on the permitting
issue back home because we have a lot of water and a lot of
endangered species where I live, and one of the things that
really seems to help is to get all the agencies in a room with
the consumers of the agency services, i.e., the permit
applicants, and then try to see if you can't come up with some
standardized permit structures. You know, back home it is not
the first time a dolphin has ever been put--I don't mean a
swimming dolphin, I mean the things you moor a boat to--it is
not the first time we have put one of those in the Columbia
River over the last couple of centuries, and yet there was a
long process where each time you had to do a brand-new EIS
(environmental impact statement) as if nobody had ever done it.
So they have now got streamlined mechanisms for that. So my
question would be, has there been a meeting, a conjoined
meeting of your operation within DOE, the tidal hydro side,
with the multiple regulatory agencies, with the applicants
together to say let us figure out how to do this, come up with
some target timelines, some reasonable expectations for
baseline and then follow-up data, et cetera, particularly as we
try to set up this test bed? Has that happened yet?
Mr. Beaudry-Losique. I would say it is fair to say that
there has been a series of bilateral discussions with key
agencies and it is definitely in our work plan, for example,
with DOE and MMS, to get all the agencies in the same room in a
working group with applicants to help determine what are the
best intervention points to speed up the permitting process but
this meeting has not occurred yet.
Chairman Baird. Okay. I will ask the witnesses, would that
make sense to have a meeting like that? Would that be helpful
to you?
Mr. Collar. I think from our perspective, it certainly
would be very helpful. I think it is a logical next step. It is
something we have not done to this point and I can see where it
could be pretty useful, yes.
Mr. Dehlsen. At approximately the same stage in wind going
back in the early 1980s, what was done in a number of counties
was to designate zones, and so rather than each time a
developer having to go through the process, just approving a
zone would be extremely helpful.
Chairman Baird. Okay. Mr. Bedard?
Mr. Bedard. I am fortunate enough, Chairman Baird, to work
for a technology organization and I don't have to get into the
permitting. In fact, when I had my three children and needed a
larger house, I even avoided adding a room on and going through
the permitting process. I just bought a new house. So I don't
like to deal with the pain.
Chairman Baird. Ms. Schneider, I mean, I know your issues
are somewhat separate but perhaps you have some insights.
Ms. Schneider. I mean, in the sense of creating, especially
as you look to low-head applications in streams, it is the same
general concept that applies in terms of gathering standardized
information and then feeding that into a streamlined process
with FERC, not just the resource agencies but also then moving
on to FERC. One of the things--and we certainly actually had a
reasonably good path, I guess, through the process on this
first project but that is also because we put a lot of effort
in front in talking to all the stakeholders involved.
Chairman Baird. Shifting topic a bit, you know, Dr. Ehlers
called much of this solar power. I believe some of it is lunar
power as well, is it not?
Mr. Dehlsen. Yes.
Chairman Baird. Puget Sound I guess would be, the Admiralty
Inlet source, a fair bit of lunar power. That is a lead-in
actually to a more substantive question, which is, Dr. Bedard,
you talked about wave energy being the most promising. We have
got a lot of big waves off our coast, and I am glad to see that
has been recognized, but it seems to me the more predictable
source is tidal flow and we know when it is going to happen, we
know it is velocity. You know, when I scuba dive up in that
area, man, you literally start it to the minute in some of
these dives because if you are not out of that water when that
tide changes, you have got a real problem up there. So we know
to the minute, and that is not the case with wind, it is not
the case with even solar in many cases and it is a real problem
up in the Northwest as we try to integrate grid with
unpredictable sources. Yet tidal is probably more predictable
than wind. What is your take on that? Yeah, I think it is
clearly more predictable than wind, probably more predictable
than wave as well.
Mr. Bedard. It certainly is. As a matter of fact, one can
predict the tidal speeds centuries in advance because they are
totally dependent upon the relative location of the earth-moon-
sun system. With waves, it is also a good situation in that the
waves are created from storms in the Pacific Northwest off
Japan, the Gulf of Alaska, so we know three days in advance
before the waves are going to hit the beaches. Mr. Rohrabacher,
who is a surfer, would know that the maverick competition at
Half Moon Bay, they call in the expert surfers one day in
advance before the biggest waves are going to hit. So that
definitely--the predictability is definitely an advantage. When
I said that wave is the most significant, in the lower 48
states, there is only maybe a handful or a dozen or so really
good tidal sites. Most of--the ocean energy in our country is
in the State of Alaska. They have by far the most wave and
tidal resources.
Chairman Baird. We have got, I mean actually a little bit
north of us but off Vancouver Island there are some
hellacious--and Point Defiance.
Mr. Bedard. Absolutely.
Chairman Baird. I almost said whitewater kayaked. I sea
kayaked there and it is like whitewater kayaking at times,
pretty exciting.
Mr. Dehlsen. I would like to offer another source of energy
and that is the rotation of the planet and the Coriolis effect,
which drives the Gulf Stream, and the energy resource off of
the southeastern United States by the Gulf Stream is quite
enormous. It is equal to about 50 times the rivers of the
planet and it flows 12 to 15 miles off the coast of Florida,
which doesn't have much else in the way of renewable energy,
geothermal, et cetera. So that is a very important one, and the
technology for doing that is very much like what you see coming
out of wind power. So that is the area we are focusing on
actually, that and wave power.
Chairman Baird. Thank you. One last comment. I drove by San
Francisco Bay a while back and saw all those ships moored way
up the bay there, they are permanently moored there. And I
thought, Archimedes tells us there is an awful lot of weight
being lifted every day and lowered back down every day and
lifted every day. It is too bad we can't attach that to some
kind of generator, and maybe somebody can figure it out.
Mr. Inglis.
Mr. Inglis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Ehlers, do you have--
Mr. Ehlers. A quick comment.
Mr. Inglis. Sure.
Chairman Baird. I am going to get a lecture on Archimedes
here.
Mr. Ehlers. No, except that apparently there is no
historical evidence that he ran through the streets naked
shouting ``Eureka.''
Chairman Baird. That was my favorite part.
Energy Production From the Gulf Stream
Mr. Ehlers. I know. It is most everyone's favorite part.
No, I was just going to comment on the Gulf Stream. I am
very afraid of tampering with the Gulf Stream because we don't
know how stable it is, and it would be disastrous for Europe if
our attempts to extract energy from it somehow interfered with
the flow of the Gulf Stream, and I have no idea what--you know,
I just don't know what the tipping point is and I am not sure
anyone knows, so I just wanted to toss that in.
Mr. Dehlsen. Can I respond to that?
Chairman Baird. I will tell you what. Let me recognize Mr.
Inglis for his five minutes and Dr. Ehlers will get his shot,
unless Mr. Inglis wants to hear about the Gulf Stream.
Mr. Inglis. That would be great. I would be happy for you
to answer that question.
Mr. Dehlsen. We had the University of Delaware do a study
in that topic and their conclusion was that at 10,000 megawatts
it was essentially within the noise of natural variability, so
effectively you could extract that from the Gulf Stream, say,
off of Florida, and really have no impact on that circulation
pattern. That is a very important topic to be aware of.
Mr. Inglis. And just two observations. One is, you know, as
a guy that is into sailing, I think that the scene of being
able to see wind turbines off shore is like looking at
sailboats, and for the well-heeled that Dana was speaking of
that don't like their view interrupted, I think they need to
rethink that and just imagine that that is a beautiful sailboat
out there. In fact, maybe we could put some colorful sort of
spinnaker kind of sails on them or ribbons and make them look
more like sailboats. I think they are really beautiful,
particularly when you think about how they are out there
producing no emissions. It is a rather beautiful scene. You
should invite people over to see out of your window what we are
doing out there, it seems to me.
The other thing is, since we are plugging, and I am not
plugging a book, I am plugging a bill. I mentioned earlier
Carlos Gutierrez' definition of sustainability that is making a
profit. The challenge that we hear from this witness table a
lot in transportation fuels is that incumbent fuel there being
petroleum doesn't have all the costs in. If the costs were all
in and a proper cost accounting, even for the simple thing of
the defense expenditures associated with protecting that supply
line, even if that were only attributed to the price of
petroleum, then a lot of what we hear from that witness table
would become economically viable. What we are hearing today is
that this wave energy, tidal energy could become viable if the
costs were in on coal, the dominant incumbent technology. If
all the costs were in there, wow, you would be in business. So
these ideas would not be ideas, they would be actually being
deployed and being developed. So I have got a bill that does
that. It is 15 pages compared to cap and trade, which is a
1,200-page monstrosity, and so it is 15 pages of a simple
concept, a revenue-neutral tax swap, reduce payroll taxes,
impose a tax on emissions, make it border adjustable so it is
removed on export, imposed on import, and it is pretty
exciting. Fifteen pages gets the job done. And it would change
the economics and make it so what we hear from that table would
suddenly become viable and fit with Carlos Gutierrez'
definition of sustainability. If you can make a profit, it is
sustainable; if you can't, it is not. But when the incumbent
technologies get to hide the cost with negative externalities
that are not internalized, there is a market distortion and
especially conservatives should rise up and say we can't
tolerate market distortions because we believe in the power of
markets and we believe in the power of free enterprise.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that opportunity to plug my
bill as well as a book.
Chairman Baird. I fully support your bill, and the only
drawback is that it sinks less carbon in the text of the bill
than does the competing cap-and-trade model, but I think it is
a much more elegant and likely to succeed strategy than the
cap-and-trade model. The key point, though, to make this
technology work, you have got to purely value carbon in some
fashion and I think yours is a better way to do it, frankly.
Dr. Ehlers.
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you. Very briefly, I totally agree with
the comments of Mr. Inglis, and it is certainly a more
intelligent approach to take to the cap and trade, simply add a
tax and give the money back to the people in a different way. I
also commend Mr. Inglis on his comments about the view and I
decided after your discussion of how beautiful they are that
you obviously could improve your salary by selling real estate.
You have a real talent there for making property look good.
With that, I yield back.
Thermal Energy Potential in the Oceans
Chairman Baird. One final topic. The bells imply that we
have a vote. We have not talked about thermal potential within
the oceans, and I wonder if any of you would like to chat about
that briefly. It may not be within your purview but possibly
Mr. Beaudry-Losique could talk a little bit about the thermal
potential energy because I understand it is fairly significant.
Mr. Beaudry-Losique. We agree that the potential of ocean
thermal is fairly enormous. However, because of the relatively
low difference in temperature between the top and the bottom of
the ocean, we need still fairly large-scale device, enormous
devices with very high capital cost. So we are going to spend
the next year or two to try to validate the economics of OTEC
and try to--and work also with the Navy on that topic and try
to determine what is going to be the ultimate potential of
driving that cost down. That will drive where would it best
fit: a tropical island or for more mainstream applications.
Chairman Baird. Does anyone else wish to comment on that?
Mr. Dehlsen. Yes. With the Gulf Stream application, the
machine that we are developing is one that can also--other than
generating electricity, you can generate high-pressure water to
shore and use that water for reverse osmosis desalinization
because if you are drawing the water off of depths, you pick up
about a 20-degree differential. So central cooling of Miami,
for example, is a possibility. And the energy payback on that
is enormous. If you combine the residual electricity that you
could generate off of the reverse osmosis flow that remains
plus the central cooling, it really helps significantly the
economics of that technology.
Chairman Baird. Maybe some low-head hydro applications
there as well.
Closing
I want to thank our witnesses for very, very fascinating
work and in all of your case lifetime of contribution to this
important issue. As always, the record of this hearing will
remain open for two weeks for additional statements from the
members and for answers to any of the follow-up questions the
Committee may ask of the witnesses. I would like personally to
maybe follow up with some of you about the idea of a joint
meeting with some of the regulators, some of the applicants and
the research side so we can possibly get this thing moving a
little bit faster and maybe a lot bit faster, and with that,
the witnesses are thanked for their time. My colleagues, thank
you for your input as always and thanks to the staff, and the
hearing is now adjourned. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 11:31 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]