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TATEC continues under preliminary permit Company has withdrawn preliminary application, notice of intent; working on details for study plans for Turnagain tidal project Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Turnagain Arm Tidal Energy Corp., TATEC, which is proposing a tidal power project in Southcentral Alaska’s Cook Inlet, has withdrawn its preliminary application document, PAD, and notice of intent, NOI, and is focusing on details required for study plan submission.
The project is still under study, but is moving forward more slowly than TATEC President Dominic S.F. Lee envisioned a year ago when staff from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission were in Anchorage for scoping meetings on the project.
The project holds a preliminary permit which it received in February 2010 and TATEC told FERC in February that it plans to resubmit the NOI and PAD later this year.
In a Feb. 14 letter to FERC Lee said the PAD and NOI were being withdrawn because the company’s study teams did not have enough time to revise the 14 study plans FERC and state and federal agencies required in the 30 days allowed.
FERC said in a Feb. 15 response that if TATEC moves forward with a license application it may refile its NOI and PAD but noted that the three-year term and requirements of the 2010 preliminary permit are unchanged.
240 megawatts FERC representatives were in Anchorage last August for scoping meetings on the proposal, which would produce 240 megawatts of tidal-generated energy from turbines in Turnagain Arm.
The turbines would be backed by a water reservoir 1 mile by 2 miles in diameter which would store water for use during slack tides. Lee said at the August FERC scoping meeting that the plan is based on a tidal power project in La Rance, France, which has been in operation since 1966. The TATEC proposal would use a “bulb type of turbine” with a barrage 1,000 feet long and 100 feet wide located 5 miles from Possession Point near Fire Island. The estimated construction cost is $760 million.
The reservoir backing the barrage, a concrete wall surrounded by rock with a height of 20 feet above high tide, would store water for use during slack tide. A submerged cable would run onshore to a switch yard in Anchorage and onshore to a control building on Point Possession at the northern end of the Kenai Peninsula.
Progress to date Lee told FERC in his Feb. 14 letter that the withdrawal was requested because of the time required for revision of study plans.
“As has been noted by agencies and stakeholders, the project is a new project that involves some unique features; is complex; and requires a large number of baseline studies in an area where little information exists,” he said. Lee said the company believes its Turnagain Arm studies, and its studies on developing tidal energy, “are worth the expenditure of more time and resources and will be of benefit to many.”
Lee told FERC in February that TATEC would work on “more specific engineering plans for the tidal plant and transmission lines” as well as working on detailed study plans.
In a July update on the project Lee told FERC “TATEC engineers have worked on detailed engineering design on how the offshore storage reservoir and the tidal turbine plant interface” and said a new design was discussed with outside engineers and hydrologists and “computer modeling will be needed to verify mathematically the sizing of the turbines’ casing, water conduits, slot gates, and the reservoir.”
TATEC also has applied to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources for a land lease and land use permit for the project area. Lee said that while a land lease wouldn’t be issued until the project was ready for construction, a land use permit is required for activities in the project area.
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