USA: RME Begins Wave Energy Project in Alaska

Resolute Marine Energy (RME) announced that its preliminary permit application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has been approved, marking the official start of the Yakutat, Alaska Wave Energy Project.

 “This approval is an important milestone for RME. After several years of research and testing we are finally poised to move forward with a commercial project that will have us providing renewable power to a community,” said Bill Staby, founder and CEO of RME. “We look forward to working with our partners in Yakutat as we begin to move this project from vision to reality.”

On July 25, 2012, RME filed an application for a preliminary permit under section 4(f) of the Federal Power Act to study the feasibility of the Yakutat Alaska Wave Energy Project. The project involves a 25-square-mile area within Alaska’s submerged lands off Yakutat, a remote community in the southeast portion of Alaska. As presently planned, the project will consist of an array of RME’s SurgeWEC™ wave energy converters for a total installed capacity of 750 kilowatts. The project would offer an estimated annual generation of over 3,000 MWh.

RME Senior Engineer and project manager Clifford Goudey said, “With this FERC approval we can begin the studies and the planning that are necessary to design the project and to prepare the needed application for a FERC license to operate. We need to characterize the wave resource in detail and engineer a system that will provide the most benefit to the community by alleviating its current dependence upon its diesel-powered generating plant.”

Scott Newlun, General Manager of Yakutat Power is excited about the prospects. He said, “Today we’re totally at the mercy of the price of diesel fuel. We see a huge energy resource going to waste over on Cannon Beach and hope this project brings sustainable power to Yakutat and eases the cost of energy on our rate payers, which is currently 55 cents per kWh for most residential customers.”

In December 2012 RME successfully tested its latest SurgeWEC device off the Outer Banks in Duck, North Carolina. The tests demonstrated RME’s novel approach to low-cost deployment and provided performance data over the six weeks of testing. The tests were the final phase of work under an award from the Department of Energy that helped support the advancement of the technology to its present commercializable state.

Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and established in 2007, RME is a privately held, international industry leader in the development of ocean wave power generation technology.

[mappress]

Press release, February 08, 2013; Image: oceanenergy