Wave-power project faces delays, costs
By: John Upton
Examiner Staff Writer
May 31, 2009
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| Harnessing the ocean’s power: The bioWAVE is one of the underwater devices The City is considering installing at Ocean Beach. (Courtesy Rendering) |
SAN FRANCISCO — An effort by San Francisco to harvest renewable energy from the power of the waves that roll into Ocean Beach has been dealt a blow by the federal government.
The development of ocean power, a budding source of clean energy that could prove lucrative for the water-flanked city, has been a cornerstone of The City’s efforts to adopt a green-energy leadership role.
The City is planning two ocean power trials: One would anchor a field of submerged kelp-resembling devices 3½ miles off Ocean Beach to capture Arctic storm-driven wave power; the other would place a turbine beneath the Golden Gate Bridge to harness moon-pulled tidal power.
An application to run up to three years of environmental and feasibility-related wave power studies in a 25-acre patch of sea off Ocean Beach was filed by San Francisco last year with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a U.S. Department of Energy agency.
After those studies, The City aims to install a trial wave-power plant at the site to create up to 3 megawatts of electricity, before ramping up the project to 100 megawatts, which is half of the electricity produced by the fossil fuel-burning power plant in Potrero Hill.
But the application was recently rejected, because responsibility for permitting renewable energy projects on the Outer Continental Shelf, which begins three miles offshore, will now be shared with the Minerals Management Service, a U.S. Department of Interior agency that regulates mining companies and collects lease payments from them.
The agency plans to require lease payments for the development of renewable-energy projects on the shelf.
Other organizations will be invited to competitively bid against San Francisco for the right to develop the patch of seabed off Ocean Beach as part of a process that could take several years, according to agency Renewable Energy Coordinator Maurice Hill.
If no other organizations bid, San Francisco will still be required to make annual lease payments, according to Hill.
Based on preliminary data published by the agency, The City’s annual lease could reach $50,000, Renewable Energy Program Manager Johanna Partin told San Francisco’s Environment Commission this week. “Which is $50,000 a year more than we were anticipating,” she said.
The tidal-power project is unaffected by the changes. The City and its partners, including Pacific Gas & Electric Co., are waiting for approval of a permit application needed to move forward on that project.
