CASTINE — Rick Armstrong, executive director of the Tidal Energy Demonstration and Evaluation Center (TEDEC) at Maine Maritime Academy, is getting a number of international visitors these days. They see the academy’s center in Castine as a prime spot to test out new technologies in tidal power generation.
“I’m looking at five business cards on my desk of overseas firms who want to get into the market,” Armstrong said recently.
The center is in such high demand because it obtained a sought-after series of permits to test scale models of tidal power projects in four sites on the Bagaduce River which empties into Castine Harbor. It’s one of the only organizations to have obtained such permits from the U.S government.
The permitting process doesn’t make a distinction between tidal power projects and hydroelectric dams, Armstrong said. Backers of most tidal power projects find the process of obtaining a permit too difficult and too costly, but the state of Maine and several other backers of the school successfully lobbied the federal government for a waiver, which simplified the process.
“We were very fortunate,” Armstrong said. “Everybody really wanted it to happen.”
The thought originally was to see if the permitted sites could be used for full-scale commercial power generation, but the Bagaduce River’s tides aren’t strong enough. Focus instead has shifted to using the four sites to test tidal power prototypes, both for large-scale international power developers and small-scale entrepreneurs.
“It’s kind of a mix of mature industries,” Armstrong said, “and people that are inventing in their garages.”
Even a micro-scale project, like one undertaken recently by Blue Hill entrepreneurs, can have significant economic impact to local business, he said.
That project pumped somewhere between $40,000 and $60,000 into the local economy by utilizing local plumbers and contractors. Armstrong also believes ocean renewable activity will benefit fishermen who are underemployed, as the seafaring infrastructure for such projects lags behind the needs of the industry.
To enter the field of ocean renewable energy, Maine Maritime has had help from a well-connected alumnus, Armstrong said. Peter Vigue, CEO of the Cianbro Companies and a Maine Maritime Academy graduate, has been a major backer in helping the school to create the tidal energy center and to collaborate with UMaine on a successful launch of a floating wind turbine, VolturnUS.
Vigue believes the ocean renewable energy industry plays to the school’s strengths of teaching maritime skills and engineering skills. He says the school has been turning out excellent power generation engineers for decades because of its emphasis on hands-on learning.
“I think that the school is ripe for educating the next generation of renewable energy engineers,” Vigue said.
With just under $1 million in new grant money from the Maine Technology Institute and other sources, Armstrong believes TEDAC will continue to grow and develop alongside the burgeoning tidal power industry.
“We’re really going to establish a state-of-the-art testing center for tidal devices at the Maine Maritime Academy,” he said.