Ocean Energy Test Site Planned for New England

Once the permission is granted to do those assessments, the information will be fed into engineering programs to design the most robust systems to capture energy from offshore wind, waves or tidal power. Does this sound too good to be true? This is exactly what the New England Marine Renewable Energy Center (MREC) and their partners are set up to do. The vision is to provide a pre-permitted site located to the southeast of Nantucket for ocean energy developers to get their systems wet.

According to John Miller, Director of MREC, " The New England Marine Renewable Energy Center (MREC) at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth is working with Edgartown to evaluate deployment of tidal energy in Muskeget Channel. MREC is also developing a broader proposal for study and emplacement of permanent test sites for tidal energy in Muskeget, and for wind and wave in the waters to the south." The proposed National Offshore Renewable Energy Innovation Zone (NOREIZ) would allow developers to test new technologies under close surveillance by MREC's University Research Consortium, which includes Woods Hole and MIT in addition to UMass, while a Governing Board with representatives from local governments would guide development and management of the test sites. All of the information developed at NOREIZ with public funding would be available to all stakeholders. Currently, the only committed test site in the world is in Scotland and it has made that region a leader in these new technologies.

New England did not invent the idea of creating a place in the ocean that is available for energy developers and researchers to test their equipment. Colleagues at Scotland's European Marine Energy Center (EMEC) and at the UK's New and Renewable Energy Center (NaREC) are setting the standard in terms of helping their emerging ocean energy industry to get a strong hold in the global energy marketplace by offering fully equipped sites where offshore wind, wave and tidal energy conversion devices can be tested.

The US has much to learn from its counterparts in Europe who have pioneered many of the technologies that will be tested here. But not all those technologies will be appropriate for these waters. New systems will be prototyped to take advantage of some of the unique wind, wave and tidal resources located in and around the western Atlantic.

Educating the many stakeholders of the potential benefits that ocean energy can bring to New England in terms of providing a clean and renewable source of energy to feed into the grid; in terms of creating many jobs that will build upon the existing clean energy and marine technology cluster in the region; as well as bring manufacturing back to New England is a focus for MREC and its partners. We applaud our legislators in their efforts to stream line the regulatory process so that test site developers and energy developers in general can get their ideas wet and working to enable Americans to achieve energy security and independence.

www.mrec.umassd.edu