News release from the U.S. Dept. of Energy:
http://energy.gov/articles/maine-deploys-first-us-commercial-grid-connected-tidal-energy-project
Showing posts with label tidal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tidal. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
Turbines Off NYC East River
Post from the blog of the U.S. Dept. of Energy:
Free Flow System turbine being installed in East River, New York, NY (Dec 2006). | Image Credit: Kris Unger/Verdant Power, Inc.
Turbines Off NYC East River Will Create Enough Energy to Power 9,500 Homes
February 6, 2012
Free Flow System turbine being installed in East River, New York, NY (Dec 2006). | Image Credit: Kris Unger/Verdant Power, Inc. As part of the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy project, 30 turbines are being installed along the strait that connects the Long Island Sound with the Atlantic Ocean in the New York Harbor. The project, led by Verdant Power, Inc., is the first ever commercially licensed tidal energy project in the United States.
The turbines are scheduled to be fully installed by 2015 and will use the flow of the river and tides to generate 1,050 kilowatts of electricity -- enough to power 9,500 New York homes.
The turbines will also collect important data about environmental impacts on fish and river sediment and provide jobs to a team of technicians who will maintain and monitor the equipment.
The Energy Department helps advance water power technologies by funding research to determine the size of the water resource and by developing innovative technologies to unleash its energy potential. The Department began providing Verdant Power with funding in 2008 to improve the turbines’ blade design. Verdant had been successfully developing and testing turbine prototypes in the East River since 2002, but those turbine rotors were not durable enough to be scaled up for commercialization. With the Department’s assistance, Verdant designed and tested new blades, which are stronger and more reliable -- allowing them to capture more energy from faster currents at greater depths and at a lower cost.
This technological improvement represents progress for the entire tidal energy industry.
Department funding for innovative water power technologies is helping the United States to take advantage of its vast water power resources to generate clean energy and to bolster the renewable energy economy. As advanced marine and hydrokinetic technologies are responsibly deployed and new hydropower opportunities are seized, water resources could deliver 15 percent of our nation’s electricity supply by 2030. Visit the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Water Power Program to learn more about how marine and hydrokinetic technologies are generating renewable, environmentally responsible, and cost-effective electricity from water resources.
The turbines are scheduled to be fully installed by 2015 and will use the flow of the river and tides to generate 1,050 kilowatts of electricity -- enough to power 9,500 New York homes.
The turbines will also collect important data about environmental impacts on fish and river sediment and provide jobs to a team of technicians who will maintain and monitor the equipment.
The Energy Department helps advance water power technologies by funding research to determine the size of the water resource and by developing innovative technologies to unleash its energy potential. The Department began providing Verdant Power with funding in 2008 to improve the turbines’ blade design. Verdant had been successfully developing and testing turbine prototypes in the East River since 2002, but those turbine rotors were not durable enough to be scaled up for commercialization. With the Department’s assistance, Verdant designed and tested new blades, which are stronger and more reliable -- allowing them to capture more energy from faster currents at greater depths and at a lower cost.
This technological improvement represents progress for the entire tidal energy industry.
Department funding for innovative water power technologies is helping the United States to take advantage of its vast water power resources to generate clean energy and to bolster the renewable energy economy. As advanced marine and hydrokinetic technologies are responsibly deployed and new hydropower opportunities are seized, water resources could deliver 15 percent of our nation’s electricity supply by 2030. Visit the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Water Power Program to learn more about how marine and hydrokinetic technologies are generating renewable, environmentally responsible, and cost-effective electricity from water resources.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Tapping into Wave and Tidal Ocean Power
U.S. Dept. of Energy blog post:
A map generated by Georgia Tech's tidal energy resource database shows mean current speed of tidal streams. The East Coast, as shown above, has strong tides that could be tapped to produce energy. | Photo courtesy of Georgia Institute of Technology
Tapping into Wave and Tidal Ocean Power: 15% Water Power by 2030
January 27, 2012
A map generated by Georgia Tech's tidal energy resource database shows mean current speed of tidal streams. The East Coast, as shown above, has strong tides that could be tapped to produce energy. | Photo courtesy of Georgia Institute of Technology In the most rigorous analyses undertaken to date, two recently released resource assessments show that waves and tidal currents off the nation's coasts contain enough energy to provide a significant portion our nation’s total annual electricity usage.
The United States uses about 4,000 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity per year. The reports find that the nation’s waves and tides could potentially produce up to 1,420 TWh annually, or 15 percent of America’s electricity. Although these resources won’t be used in their entirety, they represent a major opportunity for America to harness homegrown, clean power and create jobs.
The West Coast, including Alaska and Hawaii, has especially high potential for wave energy development while significant opportunities also exist along the East Coast, which have strong tides that could be tapped to produce energy.
The assessments—Mapping and Assessment of the United States Ocean Wave Energy Resource and Assessment of Energy Production Potential from Tidal Streams in the United States—reflect the size and magnitude of waves and tides in the ocean and serve as a foundation for an ongoing effort to map out the best locations for extraction of ocean energy.
The Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory incorporated the data from the wave resource assessment into its U.S. Renewable Resource atlas, where viewers can pan, zoom, and filter through graphically displayed data layers. In the future, 30 years of wave and weather data will be incorporated into the database to inform technological requirements and risks associated with wave energy development projects.
Georgia Tech‘s previously announced tidal streams database displays online maps that allow the public, policy makers, and water power developers to easily explore potential marine and hydrokinetic power-producing regions in the United States.
For more information about other water power resource assessments, visit the Energy Department’s Water Power Program website.
Monday, January 23, 2012
DOE Reports Show Potential for Wave & Tidal Energy Production
Progress Alert from the U.S. Department of Energy:
The United States uses about 4,000 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity per year. DOE estimates that the maximum theoretical electric generation that could be produced from waves and tidal currents is approximately 1,420 TWh per year, approximately one-third of the nation's total annual electricity usage. Although not all of the resource potential identified in these assessments can realistically be developed, the results still represent major opportunities for new water power development in the United States, highlighting specific opportunities to expand on the 6% of the nation's electricity already generated from renewable hydropower resources.
The two reports—"Mapping and Assessment of the United States Ocean Wave Energy Resource
" and "Assessment of Energy Production Potential from Tidal Streams in the United States"—calculate the maximum kinetic energy available from waves and tides off U.S. coasts that could be used for future energy production, and which represent largely untapped opportunities for renewable energy development in the United States.
The West Coast, including Alaska and Hawaii, has especially high potential for wave energy development, while significant opportunities for wave energy also exist along the East Coast. Additionally, parts of both the West and East Coasts have strong tides that could be tapped to produce energy.
Earlier this year, DOE announced the availability of its national tidal resource database, which maps the maximum theoretically available energy in the nation's tidal streams. This database contributed to the "Assessment of Energy Production Potential from Tidal Streams in the United States" report, prepared by Georgia Tech.
The wave energy assessment report, titled "Mapping and Assessment of the United States Ocean Wave Energy Resource," was prepared by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), with support and data validation from researchers at Virginia Tech and DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The report describes the methods used to produce geospatial data and to map the average annual and monthly significant wave height, wave energy period, mean direction, and wave power density in the coastal United States. NREL incorporated the data into a new marine and hydrokinetic energy section in their U.S. Renewable Resource atlas.
In addition to the wave and tidal resource assessments released today, DOE plans to release additional resource assessments for ocean current, ocean thermal gradients, and new hydropower resources in 2012. To support the development of technologies that can tap into these vast water power resources, DOE's Water Power Program is undertaking a detailed technical and economic assessment of a wide range of water power technologies in order to more accurately predict the opportunities and costs of developing and deploying these innovative technologies. The Program is currently sponsoring over 40 demonstration projects that will advance the commercial readiness of these systems, provide first-of-a-kind, in-water performance data that will validate cost-of-energy predictions, and identify pathways for large cost reductions.
These resource assessments, techno-economic assessments, and technology demonstration projects are critical elements of DOE's strategy to capture the very real opportunities associated with water power development, and to further define the path to supplying 15% of the nation's electricity through water power technologies.
DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy invests in clean energy technologies that strengthen the economy, protect the environment, and reduce dependence on foreign oil. DOE's Water Power Program is paving the way for industry and government to make sound investment and policy decisions about the deployment of renewable water power technologies by quantifying the nation's theoretically available water power resources.
DOE Reports Show Major Potential for Wave and Tidal Energy Production Near U.S. Coasts
January 18, 2012
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today released two nationwide resource assessments showing that waves and tidal currents off the nation's coasts could contribute significantly to the United States' total annual electricity production, further diversify the nation's energy portfolio, and provide clean, renewable energy to coastal cities and communities. These new wave and tidal resource assessments, combined with ongoing analyses of the technologies and other resource assessments, show that water power, including conventional hydropower and wave, tidal, and other water power resources, can potentially provide 15% of our nation's electricity by 2030. Today's reports represent the most rigorous analysis undertaken to date to accurately define the magnitude and location of America's ocean energy resources. The information in these resource assessments can help to further develop the country's significant ocean energy resources, create new industries and new jobs in America, and secure U.S. leadership in an emerging global market.The United States uses about 4,000 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity per year. DOE estimates that the maximum theoretical electric generation that could be produced from waves and tidal currents is approximately 1,420 TWh per year, approximately one-third of the nation's total annual electricity usage. Although not all of the resource potential identified in these assessments can realistically be developed, the results still represent major opportunities for new water power development in the United States, highlighting specific opportunities to expand on the 6% of the nation's electricity already generated from renewable hydropower resources.
The two reports—"Mapping and Assessment of the United States Ocean Wave Energy Resource
" and "Assessment of Energy Production Potential from Tidal Streams in the United States"—calculate the maximum kinetic energy available from waves and tides off U.S. coasts that could be used for future energy production, and which represent largely untapped opportunities for renewable energy development in the United States. The West Coast, including Alaska and Hawaii, has especially high potential for wave energy development, while significant opportunities for wave energy also exist along the East Coast. Additionally, parts of both the West and East Coasts have strong tides that could be tapped to produce energy.
Earlier this year, DOE announced the availability of its national tidal resource database, which maps the maximum theoretically available energy in the nation's tidal streams. This database contributed to the "Assessment of Energy Production Potential from Tidal Streams in the United States
" report, prepared by Georgia Tech.The wave energy assessment report, titled "Mapping and Assessment of the United States Ocean Wave Energy Resource
," was prepared by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), with support and data validation from researchers at Virginia Tech and DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The report describes the methods used to produce geospatial data and to map the average annual and monthly significant wave height, wave energy period, mean direction, and wave power density in the coastal United States. NREL incorporated the data into a new marine and hydrokinetic energy section in their U.S. Renewable Resource atlas. In addition to the wave and tidal resource assessments released today, DOE plans to release additional resource assessments for ocean current, ocean thermal gradients, and new hydropower resources in 2012. To support the development of technologies that can tap into these vast water power resources, DOE's Water Power Program is undertaking a detailed technical and economic assessment of a wide range of water power technologies in order to more accurately predict the opportunities and costs of developing and deploying these innovative technologies. The Program is currently sponsoring over 40 demonstration projects that will advance the commercial readiness of these systems, provide first-of-a-kind, in-water performance data that will validate cost-of-energy predictions, and identify pathways for large cost reductions.
These resource assessments, techno-economic assessments, and technology demonstration projects are critical elements of DOE's strategy to capture the very real opportunities associated with water power development, and to further define the path to supplying 15% of the nation's electricity through water power technologies.
DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy invests in clean energy technologies that strengthen the economy, protect the environment, and reduce dependence on foreign oil. DOE's Water Power Program is paving the way for industry and government to make sound investment and policy decisions about the deployment of renewable water power technologies by quantifying the nation's theoretically available water power resources.
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