 | A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(June 2022) |
| A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(June 2022) |
Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC, Inc.) is a marine renewable energy company based in Portland, Maine. The company develops technologies which generate electricity from tidal, river, and ocean currents. The turbines are a cross-flow design in the helix shape of DNA [1] with the axis of rotation perpendicular to the flow of water [2] and work on the same principle as water wheels. As water flows, the turbine foils spin in the same direction, producing mechanical power that a permanent magnet generator converts to electricity, [3] and then sends to the electrical grid via an underwater power cable and onshore power station. [4] The TidGen® Power System (for tidal currents) and RivGen® Power System (for river and shallow tidal currents) are the company's trademarked systems. [5]
The genesis of ORPC began in 2004, when a cruise ship industry executive, Paul Wells, queried whether there was a way to generate electricity from ocean currents like the Gulf Stream. He teamed up with two others, a structural engineer, Christopher R. Sauer, and a third co-founder with a financial background. [4] [5]
In 2007, with input from the U.S. Navy, ORPC launched a 46 ft long, horizontal cross-flow turbine prototype in Cobscook Bay, Maine, which proved technically feasible. [4]
In 2010, the company's 60-kilowatt tidal turbine began providing grid-compatible electricity to the Eastport, Maine, U.S. Coast Guard station's utility boat. [6]
ORPC pursued and won the first contract with the Maine Public Utilities Commission to provide up to 5 megawatts of tidal power in April 2012. ORPC will receive 21.5 cents per kilowatt-hour produced, which is higher than the fluctuating price paid to producers on the open electricity market. They determined that the economic benefits that would accrue to the state would be a factor of 1.8, meaning more money would be returned to the Maine economy through jobs and taxes than was being invested in the higher rate paid. [7] Maine's state senate president, Kevin Raye, described the deal as a major milestone "in the 80-year effort to commercially harness the vast power of the tides”. [5]
The company installed an underwater turbine [8] to use tidal currents to generate renewable energy. The unit was installed on the ocean floor at the company's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission-licensed [9] Cobscook Bay project site, in Eastport and Lubec, Maine. The project transmitted the first electricity ever delivered to a utility-scale grid from an ocean resource in North or South America in September 2012. [1] [3] [10] [11] A $21 million project, the Cobscook Bay Project was funded almost equally between private and public sources, with the United States Department of Energy providing a $10 million research grant. [3] The project produced enough electricity for 25 homes. Said Jose Zayas, director of the Wind and Water Power Technologies Office at the Department of Energy, "These first pioneering projects are complicated (and) really breaking new ground." [10] Said Paul Jacobson, an ocean energy expert at the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Electric Power Research Institute. "With this project, these tidal power devices have finally crossed the threshold into commercial development." [11] "The project, which injected $14 million into the local economy and has supported more than 100 local and supply chain jobs, represents the first tidal energy project in the United States with long-term contracts to sell electricity." [12]
Starting in 2013, ORPC submitted annual environmental monitoring reports for the Cobscook Bay Tidal Energy Project to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [13] with findings from acoustic, marine mammal and fish species studies along with other environmental impacts, which the company indicated had no adverse impact on the marine environment of Cobscook Bay." [14]
ORPC is developing the autonomous turbine generator unit (ATGU), a roving subsea power generation module capable of self-propelling, self-deploying and retrieving, and providing a power supply to subsea vehicles and monitoring systems, and performing underwater missions such as heavy lifts, inspections, and robotic operations. This project is supported by the US Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) program. [15] [16]
Founder and CEO Christopher R. Sauer retired in 2020, after 16 years of service to the company. Stuart Davies now leads the company as CEO. [17] [18]
ORPC has expanded its operations globally, establishing three subsidiaries: ORPC Canada (Montreal, 2015), [19] ORPC Ireland LLC (Dublin, 2015), [20] and ORPC Chile SpA (Punta Arenas, 2021). [21]
Along with 17 other high-tech small businesses and 3 individuals, ORPC received a Tibbetts Award from the U.S. Small Business Administration in Washington, D.C., in May 2013. [22] The award honors companies and individuals nationwide, "who are beacons of promise and models of excellence in high technology."
ORPC was the first marine renewable company to receive the Outstanding Stewards of America's Waters Award for Operational Excellence from the National Hydropower Association in 2016. [23]
In September 2020, Stuart Davies provided public testimony [24] before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources Full Committee Hearing on Offshore Energy Technologies. [25]
ORPC was honored as Innovator of the Year by the Maine International Trade Center in May 2021. [26] [27]
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Senator Angus King visited ORPC headquarters in September 2021. [28] [29]
In 2014, ORPC built and operated its RivGen Power System, the Company’s first river energy project, delivering power to the remote Alaskan village of Igiugig. [30]
An updated RivGen Power System was re-installed and operated in Igiugig in 2015 to demonstrate its latest technology advancements and provided one-third of the community’s electricity needs, significantly offsetting their diesel fuel use. [31]
In July 2019, ORPC deployed its commercial RivGen 2.0 Power System and connected it to the Igiugig community microgrid, generating 35 kW at this site. [32] [33] [34]
Electricity generation is the process of generating electric power from sources of primary energy. For utilities in the electric power industry, it is the stage prior to its delivery to end users or its storage.
Tidal power or tidal energy is harnessed by converting energy from tides into useful forms of power, mainly electricity using various methods.
Cobscook Bay is located in Washington County in the state of Maine. It opens into Passamaquoddy Bay, within the Bay of Fundy. Cobscook Bay is immediately south of the island city of Eastport, the main island of which straddles the two bays. In the 1930s, Cobscook Bay was part of the aborted Passamaquoddy Bay Tidal Power Project to generate electricity from its large tidal range.
The production of renewable energy in Scotland is a topic that came to the fore in technical, economic, and political terms during the opening years of the 21st century. The natural resource base for renewable energy is high by European, and even global standards, with the most important potential sources being wind, wave, and tide. Renewables generate almost all of Scotland's electricity, mostly from the country's wind power.
Wind power in California had initiative and early development during Governor Jerry Brown's first two terms in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The state's wind power capacity has grown by nearly 350% since 2001, when it was less than 1,700 MW. In 2016, wind energy supplied about 6.9% of California's total electricity needs, or enough to power more than 1.3 million households. Most of California's wind generation is found in the Tehachapi area of Kern County, California, with some large projects in Solano, Contra Costa and Riverside counties as well. California is among the states with the largest amount of installed wind power capacity. In recent years, California has lagged behind other states when it comes to the installation of wind power. It was ranked 4th overall for wind power electrical generation at the end of 2016 behind Texas, Iowa, and Oklahoma. As of 2019, California had 5,973 megawatts (MW) of wind power generating capacity installed.
Renewable energy in the United Kingdom contributes to production for electricity, heat, and transport.
The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) Ltd is a UKAS accredited test and research center focused on wave and tidal power development, based in the Orkney Islands, UK. The centre provides developers with the opportunity to test full-scale grid-connected prototype devices in wave and tidal conditions.
A floating wind turbine is an offshore wind turbine mounted on a floating structure that allows the turbine to generate electricity in water depths where fixed-foundation turbines are not feasible. Floating wind farms have the potential to significantly increase the sea area available for offshore wind farms, especially in countries with limited shallow waters, such as Spain, Portugal, Japan, France and the United States' West Coast. Locating wind farms further offshore can also reduce visual pollution, provide better accommodation for fishing and shipping lanes, and reach stronger and more consistent winds.
Marine Current Turbines Ltd (MCT), was a United Kingdom-based company which that developed tidal stream generators, most notably the 1.2 MW SeaGen turbine. The company was bought by the German automation company, Siemens in 2012, who later sold the company to Atlantis Resources in 2015.
There are a number of wind power projects in the state of Maine, totaling more than 900 megawatts (MW) in capacity. In 2020 they were responsible for 24% of in-state electricity production. In 2019, Maine had more wind capacity than the other five New England states combined, at 923 MW.
Wave power in Australia is being developed as the country has a long and largely deep-water coastline. It is one of several regions of the world where wave power projects are being considered. Australia has great potential for wave energy because strong Southern Ocean winds generate consistently large waves ideal for wave energy production. The main challenges are capital cost and withstanding damage from harsh ocean conditions.
As of 2019, renewable energy technologies provide about 17.3% of Canada's total primary energy supply. For electricity renewables provide 67%, with 15% from nuclear and 18% from hydrocarbons.
The Oyster was a hydro-electric wave energy device that used the motion of ocean waves to generate electricity. It was made up of a Power Connector Frame (PCF), which is bolted to the seabed, and a Power Capture Unit (PCU). The PCU is a hinged buoyant flap that moves back and forth with movement of the waves. The movement of the flap drives two hydraulic pistons that feed high-pressured water to an onshore hydro-electric turbine, which drives a generator to make electricity. Oyster was stationed at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) at its Billia Croo site in Orkney, Scotland until the company ceased trading in 2015.
A tidal farm is a group of multiple tidal stream generators assembled in the same location used for production of electric power, similar to that of a wind farm. The low-voltage powerlines from the individual units are then connected to a substation, where the voltage is stepped up with the use of a transformer for distribution through a high voltage transmission system.
A tidal stream generator, often referred to as a tidal energy converter (TEC), is a machine that extracts energy from moving masses of water, in particular tides, although the term is often used in reference to machines designed to extract energy from run of river or tidal estuarine sites. Certain types of these machines function very much like underwater wind turbines, and are thus often referred to as tidal turbines. They were first conceived in the 1970s during the oil crisis.
Variable renewable energy (VRE) or intermittent renewable energy sources (IRES) are renewable energy sources that are not dispatchable due to their fluctuating nature, such as wind power and solar power, as opposed to controllable renewable energy sources, such as dammed hydroelectricity or biomass, or relatively constant sources, such as geothermal power.
India has a long coastline of 7517 km marked along by numerous estuaries and gulfs which makes it attractive for the development of marine energy projects. India's wave power potential is around 40-60GW. However, compared to the developments in other renewable energy technologies, ocean energy technologies like wave and tidal are in their nascent stages of development in India.
The Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project (ETIPP) is a project under the United States Department of Energy to provide federal aid to remote communities in the United States for improving their electric infrastructure, energy costs, and resiliency during natural disasters and outages.
Orbital Marine Power is a Scottish renewable energy company focused on the development and global deployment of its pioneering floating turbine technology. The O2 is Orbital's first commercial turbine and represents the culmination of more than 15 years of world leading product development in the UK. The 74 m long turbine is expected to operate in the waters off Orkney for the next 15–20 years with the capacity to meet the annual electricity demand of around 2,000 UK homes with clean, predictable power from the fast-flowing waters while offsetting approximately 2,200 tonnes of CO2 production per year. In a further ground-breaking element of the project, the O2 will provide power to the European Marine Energy Centre's onshore electrolyser to generate green hydrogen that will be used to demonstrate decarbonisation of wider energy requirements.
Many tidal stream generators have been developed over the years to harness the power of tidal currents flowing around coastlines. These are also called tidal stream turbines (TST), tidal energy converters (TEC), or marine hydro-kinetic (MHK) generation. These turbines operate on a similar principle to wind turbines, but are designed to work in a fluid approximately 800 times more dense than air which is moving at a slower velocity. Note that tidal barrages or lagoons operate on a different principle, generating power by impounding the rising and falling tide.