Earlier NHPR brought you a story about an effort on the Seacoast to harness the energy from ocean tides.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission – or FERC - has already given two companies exclusive rights to study the tides in the Portsmouth area – the first step before getting a license.
But critics are calling the permitting process a land grab and say the agency isn’t doing enough to properly regulate what could be the next big thing in alternative energy.
NHPR’s Amy Quinton reports.
In 2004, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave companies permits to study ways to capture the energy from tides, waves and currents at locations around the US.
The companies then had three years to figure out a way to make the projects work and they’d get first dibs on a federal license.
FERC officials were caught off guard by how many entrepreneurs jumped at the chance... starting a virtual tidal turf war.
Robert Cupina is FERC’s Deputy Director for the Office of Energy Projects.
(9:23 some of the original requests were pretty broad in terms of entire coastlines, entire counties, we realize we have to be adaptable because this is different, but we still have to have some reasonable scope to it)
Cupina says FERC has received 57 applications for permits in the last three years.
So far they’ve issued 41, and 16 more are pending.
Agency officials say they are excited about the potential of this renewable energy – something they estimate could double the hydropower output in the US.
But Verdant Power’s Trey Taylor, President of the only company producing tidal power in the United States, says the permitting approval process moved too fast.
14:25 there were a lot of people that came out of the wood work that started throwing permits around like a land grab on those sites with a hope that a technology that they’re working on might work, in our opinion many of them got ahead of themselves, it would be better to know how their technology worked and performed before you start filing permits to place them in community waters.
But FERC was using the same permitting process on this new technology as it does on dams.
1012 Anyone could request a permit with a very high likelihood of receiving one 1:54 I don’t think it’s a very responsible thing to do because you’re tying up valuable resources for three years.
That’s Rob Sinq-Mars, a New Hampshire-based electrical engineer and founder of freeflowenergy.com, a website devoted to this renewable technology.
He’s been highly critical of FERC’s permitting process- he’s says for good reason.
1015 the applications are marked by a profound lack of specificity, people aren’t saying what they’re going to put in the water, they aren’t saying if they have any experience, they aren’t saying anything about their backgrounds, they’re not saying they have any demonstration projects to conduct any of the studies.
He wasn’t the only one complaining to FERC.
The Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition, tidal energy developers, and even the investment firm Morgan Stanley submitted complaints to FERC.
One company in particular seemed to be at the center of the complaints, Oceana Energy.
The company has 11 permits – including one for New Hampshire’s Piscataqua River.
Critics and competitors feared the company was planning to snatch up sites and sell the rights.
But Charles Cooper, who is the permitting agent for Oceana in New Hampshire, says it would be foolish for a company to have only one site.
18:29 what a company like Oceana who wants to make it in this business has to do is have enough sites so at least some of them will work, they all have different constraints, we talked about the constraints of the Piscataqua in terms of limited depths, other sites have harsh environmental conditions that could make them not work out.
Cooper adds the preliminary permit itself is not worth anything because a company can’t sell it.
Critic Rob Sinq-Mars says that’s true, but it becomes a great fundraising tool.
1015 3:09 what’s happening is people are requesting four five six preliminary permits and then going to investors and saying, will you give me some money to do this because I’m the company that holds the permit.
He points to Oceana’s recent partnership with Pacific Gas and Electric Company and the city of San Francisco to harness the energy of the San Francisco Bay.
While Oceana holds the permit, PG& E will put up 1.8 million dollars to help study the site’s potential.
But FERC’s Robert Cupina doesn’t see anything wrong with using the preliminary permit for capital investment.
15:08 Any kind of infrastructure you need financing, the more legitimate you look, the more success you’re going to have at that, especially where you’ve got a new technology like this, that could be a plus.
But Cupina points out that in response to the complaints FERC has taken steps to tighten the permitting process.
9:56 instead of an entire coastline off one ocean or another, we’re trying to limit the scale of the project boundaries, that way other folks can get preliminary permits for maybe sites nearby – they wouldn’t all be tied up by one entity.
Cupina says Ferc is now looking at new applications with more scrutiny - asking companies for semi-annual reports and progress reviews.
11:50 we think at least so far that we’ve got a permitting process that’s tried and true and has been continuously improved over the years, so we think its flexible enough to accommodate this new technology.
But Cupina admits since it is a new technology, there are a lot of unknowns that may lead them to make changes in the future.
For now, Oceana, and its subsidiary known as New Hampshire Tidal Energy is in the beginning stages of studying tidal power along the Piscataqua.
They own a permit for three sites on the river, but even company officials doubt all the sites will be developed.
For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.
