Firm seeks to tap river for electricity

Aug 21 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Rob Varnon Connecticut Post, Bridgeport

If permits and other applications from federal and state sources come through, a New York-based company could begin tests on a new technology to generate electricity from the tidal flows in the Housatonic River in 2009.

Natural Currents Energy Services President Roger Bason said his company filed a preliminary application for approval with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission but must also get approvals from state agencies, including the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The company plans to use its own proprietary system and said, in its FERC filing, it would place units in the river south of Wooster Island, near the towns of Shelton and Derby. While the Housatonic has a current, Bason said because of a dam upstream and a "Y" in the river, there is a tidal affect, which his company hopes to put to use making electricity.

The project is so new that Shelton Board of Alderman President John F. Anglace said he had not heard of it.

"I guess this is a wake-up call," Anglace said, noting that Wooster Island is a popular place for boaters to tie up and do some fishing. He said it's really closer to Milford than Shelton, but it's in an area that residents successfully defended from an attempt by the DEP and Caswell Cove Marina in Milford to dump material dredged from the marina to the Shelton side of the river.

Anglace said the town and residents would have to monitor the plans.

Bason said the company also applied for a state-backed loan of up to $500,000 from the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund and a decision on that could come before the end of this year.

However, CCEF Monday was unable to find an application or say if it has ever funded any other tidal energy projects. It also couldn't say definitively that the company had not applied for the funding.

Bason said if the project gets the necessary approvals, the company would spend 2008 designing and testing a system and then put a 20 kilowatt pilot project in the water in 2009 with the goal of expanding power output to 1.5 megawatts at a later date. A 20-kilowatt power plant would provide enough electricity for about 10 homes.

The goal of the project would be to sell the electricity into the grid.

Bason said the company has selected a Connecticut factory to build the equipment, but is not releasing details because a contract has not been completed.

Shelton resident, Richard Conklin, a member of Friends of the Housatonic River, said he hasn't heard about the project, either.

Friends of the Housatonic River was the primary force in fighting the dredging plan.

But Conklin expressed cautious support for the idea.

"It's about time," he said that someone used the river to create electricity. "It doesn't cause any pollution."

Rob Varnon, who covers business, can be reached at 330-6216.