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By Katie Howell, E & E Reporter
(04/15/2009) The ocean could provide 2 percent of U.S. electricity needs within 15 years if there is a sea change in regulation, financing and deployment, several renewable-energy experts said at a Washington conference today.
Robert Hawsey, associate director at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, said harnessing marine tides, currents, and temperature and salinity changes to produce clean energy faces many regulatory hurdles
stemming from the fledgling industry’s potential effects on the ocean and its inhabitants.
Hawsey and others at the Global Marine Renewable Energy Conference say such challenges should be met head-on — with pilot projects to test technology, provide data and set the stage for future regulations.
“We have to build some prototypes and get them in the water,” said Robert Thresher, a senior research fellow at NREL, a conference sponsor. “Everybody counts on learning curves, but in the early stages, in my
mind, it’s innovation, innovation, innovation. It has a lot more to do with engineering insights than learning curves.”
Oceans now produce less than 300 megawatts of electricity, said John Huckerby, chairman of the International Energy Agency’s ocean energy committee. That number will nearly double next year when a 250-megawatt seawall dam in Korea comes online, he said, but the industry has a long way to go.
In the short run, the industry needs financing. The economic crisis has shriveled private funding sources for untested renewable energy technologies. And banks that are still investing are doing so with companies they already know, said Keith Martin, a lawyer with the New York-based firm Chadbourne & Parke. Many small developers can only secure about $300 million to $350 million, he said.
The federal stimulus bill has temporary programs to address those issues, Martin said, including grants for up to 30 percent of the project cost and loan guarantees for private lenders.
“The stimulus has changed the landscape for how to finance renewable energy projects,” Martin said.
But like other stimulus projects, ocean-harnessing developments must show they are ready to build. Projects eligible for federal grants must be ready to start construction this year or next and be completed by
2013.
Many doubt the technology is ready for large-scale development, but without in-water testing it will never advance to a scale necessary for deployment.
Carolyn Elefant, a lawyer for the Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition, the industry’s trade group, said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Minerals Management Service should place more emphasis on technology as they develop a regulatory framework for the offshore industry. The two agencies last week entered into a memorandum of understanding to divide the permitting and regulating responsibilities (E&ENews PM , April 9).
But most conference participants say they are optimistic that a quick deployment of test projects will help the industry take root.
“With oceans, what we’re really talking about is viability,” said Roger Bedard, the ocean energy leader for the Electric Power Research Institute. “With wind and solar, the real issue is forecastability. But the fact here is that waves are the winds of three days ago in the Sea of Japan and the Gulf of Alaska. We know two to three days in advance the power of those waves and can predict way in advance the strength of tides in any particular location at any time of day and any day of the year.”