A company eyeing Cook Inlet for a tidal energy project expects to hear in the next five months whether it’s getting roughly $30 million for its efforts. For years, Maine-based Ocean Renewable Power Company has had its eyes on the inlet. It has some of the biggest tides in the world and accounts for more than a third of the country’s tidal energy resource.
“As many of you might know, if you live near the Cook Inlet, there is an incredible resource in the Cook Inlet for tidal energy, just watching, watching the water go by on any given day,” she said. “All the locals know it.”
That’s Eva White, analyst and community engagement manager of what the company is calling the American Tidal Energy Project. During a webinar, she outlined the work done so far to get the project off the ground – or, more aptly, in the water.
The company is interested in an area near Nikiski called the East Forelands – it’s a natural bottleneck in Cook Inlet where tidal flows are exceptionally strong.
“Our big picture is to develop a commercially viable standalone tidal energy market in Cook Inlet,” she said. “And we know that that is not going to happen tomorrow. So our first step is to do the American Tidal Energy Project.”
That project is a tidal site capable of generating between one and five megawatts of power to feed into an existing electric grid. White says they’re looking at a Homer Electric Association substation that can accommodate two megawatts. If the project moves forward, it could meet about two-and-a-half percent of the cooperative’s roughly 80 megawatts worth of energy needs.
But there are major hurdles to clear for the project to actually happen. That $30 million the company’s hoping for? It’s from a competitive federal grant. White says they expect to hear whether they beat out a competing pitch for a Puget Sound tidal energy project by June. And uncertainty over the status of federal grant funding linger.
“A lot of this work that we've been doing is caveated by the fact that we have yet to receive funding for the later stages of the project,” she said. “We feel really good about the work that we've been doing. And you know, even if we don't get funding, we're going to try and figure out another way.”
If the money comes through, the Ocean Renewable Power Company will spend this summer and next taking measurements in Cook Inlet needed for federal and state permits.
