PORTLAND, Maine — Chris Sauer, chief executive officer of Ocean Renewable Power Co., said Friday he’s pleased that federal lawmakers restored funding to a program that’s provided his company with about $17 million since 2008 and could help the tidal power startup bring a 5-megawatt generator near Eastport to market.
An amendment that cleared the U.S. House of Representatives restored $9 million of a proposed $20 million cut to a Department of Energy office that funds renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. A version of the bill still needs approval in the Senate and from President Barack Obama, who has threatened a veto over some cuts proposed in the Republican-led House.
Sauer said he views the amendment that cleared the House as a potential boon for his company, which has relied on federal grants supporting marine and hydrokinetic projects to put the first grid-connected tidal power generator in the water in 2012.
“It’s a lifesaver for a young startup company like us,” Sauer said. “It gets us money but it also shows that the DOE is behind what we’re doing and that helps us attract private investment.”
The $9 million put back into the DOE budget for that research brings its total water power program account for 2015 to $47.5 million. That fund, in part, supports grants like the $10 million award ORPC won in 2010 to commercialize the TidGen unit it tested in Cobscook Bay.
U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud announced the amendment they supported as a victory Friday. Sauer said his company has had consistent support from Maine’s congressional delegation and groups like the Maine Technology Institute that have helped it to develop its hydrokinetic generation units.
While lawmakers hash out details of the federal energy budget by an Oct. 1 deadline — or perhaps pass intermediate measures — Sauer said he expects the latest batch of grants to go out for competitive bid next spring, a process with which he said ORPC is comfortable.
“It’s [awarded] on a competitive basis and we don’t mind that,” Sauer said. “We have won more [Department of Energy] money from this program than any other company in the country.”
That could be critical heading into next spring, Sauer said.
“We’re in what they call the valley of death,” Sauer said. “We’re still perceived to be too risky for most investors and it’s hard.”
This month, the company is scheduled to put a smaller version of its core technology into use on Alaska’s Kvichak River to power the remote 70-person village of Igiugig that relies largely on diesel generators for its electricity. That project got about $1.5 million from the Alaska Energy Authority and U.S. Department of Energy and required about $2 million to $2.5 million in investment from ORPC.
Weeks ago, Sauer said, the company began testing its largest-scale unit in Cobscook Bay, a predecessor to building out to 5 megawatts of tidal power generation in the Western Passage of the Bay of Fundy, off the coast of Eastport.
Both units use the same generator design — which looks something like the blade of a rotary lawn mower — at different scales. The company is now refining those designs into what Sauer called “version 2.0,” which he said will be ready in about a year to position the company to pitch the Western Passage project and others as profitable ventures for private investors.
“When we complete this version 2.0 design, our numbers show that we will then be able to build out the rest of that project to 5 megawatts and there will be an adequate return on investment for investors,” he said.
Sauer said early results have been good from the buoyant stacked-turbine OCGen unit that uses a mooring system to stay tethered where the tidal forces are strongest. The challenge will be moving that technology to deeper water for its commercial-scale project.
“That’s why the OCGen test is so important,” he said. “We’ve not worked in that depth of water. That will be a challenge, but it’s all manageable.”