Page 12: of Marine Technology Magazine (September 2010)

news 12 MTR September 2010

U.S. Coast Guard Sector Northern New

England (SNNE) crews partnered with

Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC) members to demonstrate the a robust tidal energy program on, Aug. 24, 2010. Gov.

John Baldacci, Congressman Mike Michaud and Capt. James McPherson, SNNE’s com- mander, united at Coast Guard Station

Eastport to celebrate the first-ever successful implementation of tidal energy at a federal facility. Massive tidal ranges in the ocean waters surrounding Eastport represent some of the largest in the country, rising and falling over 20 feet. The Coast Guard’s

Research and Development Center (RDC), located in New London, Conn., and SNNE collaborated with Ocean Renewable Power

Company to commission the first ever use of a tidal energy generator.

The 60 kW tidal turbine was launched in

March for testing and is the largest ocean tidal energy generator in the United States.

The turbine generator unit (TGU) is set in a steel-composite frame and is deployed from one of ORPC’s research vessels, the Energy

Tide 2, in Cobscook Bay. The unit utilizes advanced design cross-flow turbines to drive the generator and the electricity produced will charge a set of battery modules housed in the Energy Tide 2.

The generator was recently re-deployed fol- lowing several upgrades and began providing clean, grid-compatible electricity to Coast

Guard Station Eastport’s 41-foot Utility

Boat on Aug. 18, 2010. The TGU will also be involved in a concurrent project to test an active acoustic monitoring system that iden- tifies marine life and debris in the vicinity of the turbine. “The tidal generator is a pioneering con- cept in the field of renewable energy,” said

McPherson. “The fact that this prototype is successfully producing power gives us the sense that this project has unlimited poten- tial for not only Coast Guard facilities, but for the United States.”

USCG, ORPC

Partner on Tidal Energy Demo

Iver2: In Search of

Earhart

OceanServer

Technology recently loaned an Iver2 AUV outfitted with Side

Scan Sonar to the The

International Group for

Historic Aircraft

Recovery (acronym

TIGHAR, pronounced “tiger”), the world’s leading aviation archaeological founda- tion. The TIGHAR foun- dation has organized several trips to

Gardner Island, now

Nikumaroro in the

Republic of Kiribati based on the hypothe- sis that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan land- ed and eventually died on this remote Pacific island. The Iver2 vehi- cle was operated by

Seabotix, a worldwide leader in small ROVs, to sweep large areas of the Nikumaroro

Lagoon and collect

Side Scan Sonar images. The AUV sonar data was used to identify geo-refer- enced targets of inter- est that could then be further investigated by an ROV. For further information on the “The Earhart Project” visit the TIGHAR web- site: http://tighar.org.