The first U.S. commercial wave energy station will be built off the coast of Oregon and Oregon Iron Works will build the first Buoy. New Jersey based Ocean Power Technologies has contracted with Oregon Iron Works (owner of United Streetcar – the only streetcar manufacturer in the U.S.) to build the first buoy at its Clackamas facility.
According to the New York Times Green, Inc. Blog:
…the first buoy [is] expected to deploy in a year. Two years after that, nine more buoys should go into the water. The fully deployed, $60 million system was expected to have a capacity of 1.5 megawatts — about half that of a single giant wind turbine (though the waves should be able to provide plenty of power around the clock, unlike the intermittent wind).
The Oregonian is reporting:
Oregon Iron Works will start work in the coming weeks on the massive and mechanically sophisticated cylindrical structure — 150 feet tall and 40 feet in diameter — at its hangar-size fabrication bays in Clackamas.
The company estimates construction would initially create or sustain about 30 jobs, and that an additional nine buoys — if that contract comes its way — would create about 150 jobs in manufacturing, assembly and maintenance of the “wave energy farm.
Power generated by waves is not expected to be cheap. The hope is to arrive at a cost double that of wind power. Phillip Peligrino, Vice President of Business Development for Ocean Power Technologies explains it this way:
“The first hand held calculator and the first microprocessor were more expensive when they first came out,” said Pellegrino. “This is an immature technology. It takes awhile to crank up and establish scale.”
Read the full Oregonian article here and the New York Times Green, Inc. Blog article here.
