Alaskan Wave Energy Project Receives Project Management Support

November 11th, 2013 by Joshua S Hill

Image Credit: Renewable Energy World

Located on the Gulf of Alaska, the 750 kW Yakutat Wave Energy Project is set to make life easier for locales who have so far had to rely on diesel prices as high as $8 per gallon, thanks to the 1,000 mile journey the fuel has to make by road to get there.

And now, Resolute Marine Energy (RME) have announced that Ocean Renewable Power Company’s subsidiary, ORPC Solutions, will be providing project management and regulatory services for the project.

The remote community of 650 inhabitants have had their economic and social viability threatened by the absurdly priced diesel costs, but the self-sufficiency program based around the Yakutat Wave Energy Project is set to make this problem disappear, hopefully.

RME will be installing its SurgeWEC wave energy converters at an ocean site nearby the existing Yakutat Power municipal power grid. RME has already obtained a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission preliminary permit for the site, and is now working on obtaining a formal license application to the commission.

“I’m very pleased to see the progress that’s being made on the Yakutat Wave Energy Project and we’re very excited that ORPC is now a part of the team,” said Scott Newlun, General Manager of the City and Borough of Yakutat Power Company. “I strongly believe that ocean energy will eventually become a large part of the world’s renewable energy mix, and we’re hopeful that Yakutat will be the site of the first commercial wave energy project in the United States.”

“ORPC’s demonstrated success in permitting marine hydrokinetic projects and the company’s strong relationships with regulatory agencies will be of great benefit as we move from preliminary to final permit status and start deploying our wave energy converters in 2015,” said RME Co-Founder and CEO, Bill Staby.

“We share RME’s commitment to help remote communities address their challenging energy needs,” said Chris Sauer, ORPC President and CEO, “and we’re pleased to help RME make its Yakutat Wave Energy Project a reality.”

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Tags: alaska, Ocean Renewable Power Company, ORPC Solutions, Resolute Marine Energy, RME, Yakutat, Yakutat Wave Energy Project

About the Author

Joshua S Hill I'm a Christian, a nerd, a geek, and I believe that we're pretty quickly directing planet-Earth into hell in a handbasket! I also write for Fantasy Book Review (.co.uk), and can be found writing articles for a variety of other sites. Check me out at about.me for more.

http://www.facebook.com/carmen.johnson.5891 Carmen Johnson

nice post
JamesWimberley

It would be nice to see somebody crack wave energy. It’s the hardest renewable, because it uses the worst possible environment for machinery this side of Venus..
- Dave2020
  
  I’m sure the best way to crack wave energy would be to marry it with floating wind turbines. HAWTs require an especially large platform to make them stable, (because of their high C of G, VAWT’s are a better choice) and that structure is completely UNproductive. A dynamic platform could be built using the same material content and it would harvest wave energy as a function of stabilizing the wind turbine.
  
  Two technologies sharing one vessel is bound to reduce the LCOE of both, and the design has a shallow draft too, so it could well supersede current sea bed foundations. That would in turn slash installation and O&M costs by eliminating the need for special jack-up barges.