OpenHydro Secures Tidal Energy Contract in Washington

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Irish tidal energy company OpenHydro (Dublin) has clinched a contract to develop a tidal energy pilot project for Snohomish County Public Utility District (SnoPUD) in the state of Washington. The project will see the installation of up to three tidal turbines in the Admiralty Inlet region of Puget Sound, the second largest estuary in the United States with a shoreline of more than 2,300 miles. The turbines will be connected to the electricity grid via subsea cables. Installation is expected to begin in 2011. The goal of the pilot project is to generate 22.5 megawatts (MW) of power.

OpenHydro will install the 6-meter-wide open-center Turbines on the seabed using its purpose-built installation barge, the OpenHydro Installer, which it describes as the "world's first specialist barge for installing seabed-mounted tidal turbines." The company said the turbines will be sited at a depth that presents no navigational hazard.

"We're thrilled to partner with OpenHydro to develop a clean, emission-free energy source that has the potential to make a significant contribution to meeting our region's growing energy needs," said SnoPUD General Manager Steve Klein. "Tidal energy can be sited right here in western Washington and easily integrated into our existing electrical system without requiring hundreds of miles of new transmission lines."

"OpenHydro's vision is to develop arrays of tidal turbines, silently and invisibly generating renewable energy under the world's oceans," said James Ives, CEO of OpenHydro. "This is a significant contract for our business, and it marks a further step toward achieving that goal. We truly believe that tidal energy will make a considerable contribution towards meeting SnoPUD's renewable energy targets."

OpenHydro has been winning accolades in Europe for its turbine technology. In May 2008, OpenHydro became the first company to connect a tidal turbine to the U.K. national grid and also deployed the first free-standing tidal turbine directly onto the seabed at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, Scotland.

In October of last year, French national utility Electricite de France SA (EPA:EDF) (Paris) selected OpenHydro to develop the first tidal-current demonstration farm in the Paimpol-Brehat region of Brittany. This will see up to 10 turbines being connected to the French national grid by 2011.

Since then, the company acquired a 20% stake in Alderney Renewable Energy Limited (Aldernay, Channel Islands), which has a 65-year lease for the generation of renewable tidal and wave energy in the waters surrounding the island of Aldernay, one of the larger inhabited Channel Islands off the south coast of England. The tidal waters around the island are capable of generating up to 3,000 MW of power, and the first phase will see OpenHydro deploying 285 1-MW turbines on the seabed. Aldernay lies 60 miles from the U.K. but just 9 miles from France. For additional information, see related news item from April 1, 2009 - Ireland's OpenHydro Group to Harness Tidal Energy Potential in Channel Islands.

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