The Pacific Gas and Electric Company expects to be granted $1.2 million this week by the U.S. Department of Energy to study wave energy off Fort Bragg and Eureka.
PG&E sought the new money earlier this summer to move its local wave energy study under a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) preliminary permit to the commercial stage.
In order to complete that study and get test equipment into the water, the Department of Energy grant is needed, PG&E says.
FERC, an independent panel appointed by the president, is independent of the Department of Energy, which is an executive branch agency. It is the first time that the department has been involved in the local wave energy issue.
PG&E recently withdrew from studying the same area under a Minerals Management Service alternative energy lease.
The most recent news of the federal Department of Energy grant will be a study undertaken by the utility as part of a team that includes Humboldt State University and the University of Texas at Austin. PG&E hopes the money will eventually make the project commercially viable.
“PG&E believes there is potential to generate renewable, emission free, environmentally benign, and cost effective energy from wave energy at selected sites in the PG&E service territory in Northern California, and that successful wave energy demonstration may enable significant commercial development resulting in important benefits for both the Northern California region and the country,” the grant application by the utility states.
The Department of Energy grant supplements a California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) grant that PG&E expects to be about $2 million, with more in future stages. The CPUC attached strings to their grant and lessened the amount because of challenges to PG&E”s desire for secrecy and because of the nascent nature of wave energy technology.
“PG&E seeks … completion of engineering and permitting activities with reduced project financial risk [so] the PG&E team will be ready to file for, and receive, an operating license, which will then allow PG&E to initiate construction. Due to the somewhat uncertain regulatory environment with wave energy projects, without DOE co-funding, PG&E may not be able to move this ground-breaking utility-scale wave project to the in-water test readiness milestone,” the DOE grant application states.
The utility has had to deal not only with an open jurisdictional feud between the Minerals Management Service and FERC, but with FERC”s modifications of the process as it goes along.
“WaveConnect will facilitate WEC development through final demonstration and pre-commercialization development stages by allowing developers to install, operate and monitor commercial-scale WEC devices in realistic offshore marine conditions over a number of years. In this respect, WaveConnect will perform the function of a WEC device proving zone for the efficient delivery of power derived from renewable wave energy,” the PG&E request states.
This was the original scheme put forward by PG&E when they first arrived in Fort Bragg three years ago. The utility has modified that ambitious plan over the years to deal with FERC”s changing picture and the emerging picture from the Minerals Managment Service. The MMS is in the midst of “rulemaking” the creation of a public and legal process that many critics say could clear up the confusion created by FERC, which has consistently resisted calls that it engage in rulemaking.
Clearly, PG&E needs to do in-water testing for wave energy to be viable. FERC”s preliminary permit process no longer allows for that to happen. FERC anticipates issuing a license to PG&E for wave energy off Humboldt next spring. A license would allow in-water testing and even legal power generation.
“The objective of the overall PG&E WaveConnect Demonstration Project is to conduct in-water testing and evaluation of commercial/near-commercial WEC [wave energy converter] technology representative of what would be expected to be used in a commercial-scale power plant. This will enable PG&E to make an informed evaluation of WEC technology as to whether, and to what extent, wave energy should be included in PG&E”s energy portfolio, while simultaneously facilitating the commercial development of this new industry,” the PG&E application states.
The DOE had planned to announce the grant last week. PG&E expects the announcement to come this week.
PG&E is the primary proposing organization and its project team includes CH2MHill, EPRI, University of Texas at Austin, Humboldt State University and other contractors to be named later.
