Local Town beats Private Company to own the rights to Local Tidal Energy

[Ichingcarpenter]

Town Takes Tidal Energy Project Into Its Own Hands
Jul 12, 2008

Last year Edgartown learned that a private company, NY based Natural Currents Energy Services, was quietly trying to gain the rights to the channel. If Currents Energy Services won the rights Edgartown would not have access to this valuable resource that is one of the relatively few spots across the globe that is suitable for generating tidal current energy. They realized that they had to act fast. In a mad dash town officials and private citizens spent hundreds of hours preparing the 82 page preliminary permit application and got it in just before the deadline. Because of federal regulations that give local municipalities first dibs on local waters the Town of Edgartown won the rights. On March 31, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted a permit for Edgartown and the University of Massachusetts to study the feasibility of the tidal-energy project. UMASS began their testing in June.

The project, led by town selectman Art Smadbeck and resident Kitt Johnson, would place 50 tidal turbines in the Muskegat Channel between Chappaquiddick and Nantucket. According to a preliminary assessment by the Electric Power Research Institute the site could generate and average of 2 megawatts during peak times of the day, enough to power approximately 1500 homes.



http://greenupgrader.com/2436/residents-take-tidal-energy-project-into-their-own-hands/