The Snohomish County Public Utility District has received federal funds to produce electricity from a tidal power pilot project offshore of Admiralty Head on Whidbey Island near the Keystone Harbor ferry landing.
The Snohomish PUD received notice last week of a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The utility will match the grant with $10.1 million to produce the $20 million project and purchase two large tidal turbines.
It expects to begin producing electricity from the turbines in 2012.
The Energy Department last week awarded $37 million to projects around the nation for generating clean, cost-competitive renewable electricity from the nation’s oceans and free-flowing rivers and streams.
The PUD applied for the grant in a competitive process, PUD spokesman Neil Neroutsos said. Two other power utilities received smaller grants, one in Maine and one in New Jersey.
Neroutsos said the turbines would be placed about a half-mile off Admiralty Head in waters to 200 feet deep.
The two turbines will generate 1 megawatt of power during peak times and an average 100 kilowatts, enough to power nearly 700 homes, Neroutsos said.
Two 400-ton turbines from OpenHydro, an Irish company that built turbines being used in Scotland, will be lowered to the sea floor.
The PUD now must secure permits from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which handles such alternative energy production applications.
The PUD also is looking at Deception Pass, at the north end of Whidbey Island, as a site for tidal power.
“We’re excited to be leading the way in the research of this innovative energy source — another tool to help us and the nation combat climate change and attain energy independence,” said PUD board President Toni Olson in a statement.
Currents in Admiralty Inlet between Whidbey Island and the North Olympic Peninsula were found to be running at 7 knots per hour, Neroutsos said. Earlier, it had been estimated at 4 to 6 knots.
PUD officials said the exact location of future turbines has not been decided.
The PUD and the University of Washington, working with the UW’s Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center, are researching conditions in the inlet.
The turbines resemble a fan, sitting about 65 feet high on a triangular platform of about 100 feet by 85-feet, the PUD said.
Navy project delayed
The Navy has proposed a sea-turbine pilot project off the southern tip of Marrowstone Island, but spokeswoman Sheila Murray said the project has been delayed by lack of funding, now expected to come some time in 2012.
“The Navy needs funding” to continue the process, Murray said Friday.
That sea-turbine alternative power-generating project would involve the sinking of mounted turbine blades of 16 feet in diameter and weighing more than 4 tons.
Three undersea turbines mounted on a 40-ton frame are proposed to be sunk as part of a Navy tidal energy kinetic hydropower system test.
The turbines would be anchored with the aid of gravity about 70 feet down in the strong currents off Marrowstone Island’s Nodule Point.
As proposed in the pilot project, power generated by the turbines would be temporarily cable-fed to energize Naval Magazine Indian Island’s administrative offices about two miles to the west of Marrowstone Island.
A similar array was successfully tested in the East River of New York, installed and operated by Verdant Power, a Navy contractor based in the same city.
It powered a parking garage and grocery store there.
Launched effort in 2007
The Snohomish PUD launched its research effort in 2007, working with several technical partners, including the University of Washington, the Electric Power Research Institute, the National Renewable Energy Lab and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Marine Sciences Laboratory in Sequim.
The city of Port Townsend in March 2007 lost its bid to develop tidal power when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved Snohomish PUD’s application to develop it in Admiralty Inlet, between Port Townsend and Whidbey Island.
That, in effect, gave Snohomish PUD exclusive rights.
Snohomish PUD had filed with the regulatory commission in June 2006, while Port Townsend filed its application in September of that year, which city officials said was to Snohomish PUD’s advantage.
City of Port Townsend officials wanted to develop a tidal power pilot project off Point Wilson.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
