FEDS STUDY OREGON’S OCEAN ENERGY MARKET

BOEM Assesses Prospects of Wave Energy off Oregon

Eric Haun, March 24, 2014 (MarineLink)

"…[T]he Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) [initiated on March 24 a 30-day public comment period to assess]…whether there is competitive interest in wave energy research or development in an area of federal waters offshore Oregon where the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center at Oregon State University (NNMREC-OSU) proposes to site a hydrokinetic energy facility to test utility-scale wave energy devices…[The Pacific Marine Energy Center – South Energy Test Site would test] utility-scale wave energy devices at four test berths [located about four nautical miles offshore Newport, Oregon in water depths ranging from 180-230 feet], with a connection to the mainland electric grid via a subsea cable…The project is designed to support up to 10 megawatts (MW) of electricity generation from individual devices and small-scale arrays…The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that the total technically recoverable wave energy resource along the U.S. coast to be 1,170 terawatts a year (TWh/yr), which is almost one third of the 4,000 TWh of electricity used in the United States each year…The recoverable wave energy resource for the West Coast is estimated at 250 TWh/year…” click here for more

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