Western Passage Tidal Energy Project

The proposed Western Passage Tidal Energy Project (Project) would include an array of hydrokinetic tidal energy devices with a total capacity of up to 5-megawatts (MW) in Western Passage, Maine. Western Passage is a narrow passage in the northern Atlantic Ocean, northeast of the City of Eastport, in Washington County, Maine, and bounded by the border between the United States (U.S.) and Canada. Western Passage is the western conduit for waters flowing from the St. Croix River and Passamaquoddy Bay and into Friar Roads Bay. 

ORPC plans to develop the Western Passage Project in phases to manage and retire risks and to collect operational and environmental data important for ensuring long-term project success. ORPC plans to initially test a single tidal energy device, the TidGen® Power System (TidGen), at Western Passage. ORPC’s TidGen is being developed with funding provided in part by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office as part of their strategic investments in domestic renewable energy solutions. Following the successful demonstration of a single device, ORPC plans to install additional TidGen devices to create a power system array. A single TidGen is characterized for 80 kilowatts (kW) of output at 2.25 meters per second (m/s) of velocity, with a peak output of 160 kW at 3.5 m/s of velocity. The approximate dimensions of a TidGen device are 17.8 meters wide (58 feet) by 6 meters high (20 feet). In subsequent years of the Project, ORPC plans to replace the initial TidGen devices with larger MW-scale devices currently under development. The larger devices will also be tested in phases at Western Passage– first a single device, then an array. ORPC estimates that three to five of the larger MW-scale devices would bring the total capacity of the Project up to 5-MW. The estimated dimensions of the MW-scale devices would likely be 37.2 meters (122 feet) in width and 21.7 meters (71.2 feet) in height. Both the TidGen and larger MW-scale devices are planned to be tethered to subsea rock anchor systems.  

ORPC and the City of Eastport have been economic development partners since 2006, when the parties executed An Economic Development Partnership Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). In September 2019, ORPC and the City of Eastport revised, updated, and re-signed the MOU to document the parties’ joint interest in pursuing a local microgrid and battery energy storage project that would be supplied with baseload power provided from ORPC’s Western Passage Tidal Energy Project. The City of Eastport worked on a local energy planning effort that was assisted by the DOE’s Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project (ETIPP). ETIPP provided Eastport with technical expertise from the National Renewable Energy Lab and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, as well as from local partners including ORPC, Versant Power (regional utility), and the Island Institute. The Eastport ETIPP team has progressed the planning of a local microgrid that would have tidal energy as baseload and help strengthen grid reliability and resiliency in Eastport.