After Regulatory Delays
Innovative Tidal Energy Plan Finally
Gets Turbines Into East River Currents
by Dick Lutz

"For us, this is like our flight at Kitty Hawk."

With Monday’s sunrise in the background, a Verdant Power turbine was hoisted from the lift barge near Motorgate, headed for duty under the surface of the east channel, where it will capture the energy in the tidal flow of the East River. It’s the first of 200 or more. More photo coverage on page 18 and, in color, on Website NYC10044.

Trey Taylor of Verdant Power repeated that description Monday and Tuesday for cameras from National Geographic, Discovery Channel UK, the New York Times website, and any who asked. The cameras were there to record what could turn out to be historic – the moments, on each day, when the company’s first two turbines went into the water in the project they’re calling RITE – for Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy.

The television documentarians looked for dramatic moments, but there were few glitches. After nearly eight years of driving toward this moment, Verdant and its contracted helpers had it all worked out: At slack tide – that brief period when the East River (really a tidal estuary) switches direction of flow – divers secured the turbines to pylons that had been driven into the riverbed just east of Motorgate. The drama was in the successful completion of another step in the process of proving out a new adaptation of an idea that’s been around for two or three thousand years: capturing the energy in flowing water.

"Fifteen percent of us live in developed countries and we’re using 60 percent of the world’s fossil fuels. Thirty-five percent of the world’s population have no access to electricity, but they all live near moving water," Taylor said on Monday, watching the first green turbine assembly as it disappeared below the surface. Since teaming up with Ron Smith to incorporate Verdant Power, Taylor has been enthusiastic about the size of the market for the company’s product in the developing world. It’s not lost on him that Roosevelt Island is the temporary home for many who represent their countries at the United Nations.

But the RITE project has green-power implications for the developed world, as well. Just a stone’s throw from New York State’s largest fossil-fuel burning power plant, Ravenswood, Verdant ran a raft-mounted test back in 2002 of a system so green that, when deployed, it not only doesn’t pollute, it’s also invisible, under water. (The WIRE’s report is on line at nyc10044.com/wire/2310/verdant.html.)

The potential is deceptive when considered one turbine at a time. Each one can generate up to 37 kilowatts. Each of those kilowatts is, by an international standard, just about right to power one home. For the 200-300 turbines Verdant plans for the the east channel – perhaps by the end of 2008 – the power yield would be 7,400-11,000 kilowatts. (The experts say 7.4-11 megawatts, translating from thousands to millions of watts.) That’s more than enough to power every home and business on the Island, and the Tramway, to boot.

Because the East River is tidal, there are "slack tides" when the water is reversing direction. Those moments on Monday and Tuesday mornings were the critical times for divers to secure the turbines to pylons. But slack tides also mean pauses in power production, so homes on Roosevelt Island would still rely on Con Ed’s power grid, just as Gristedes and Motorgate will as they use the first power produced by one of the RITE turbines installed this week. (The other is primarily for test measurements.)

New York University had a role in the project in the form of some research and a report done in the 1980s. When Taylor and Smith were disappointed in an initial effort with a lone inventor type, they used the NYU connection to locate Dean Corren, who ultimately designed a key component for the Verdant turbines. Corren is one of the folks who spend a fair amount of time at RITE’s Roosevelt Island headquarters – an adapted cargo container that sits on the east seawall in the afternoon shadow of Motorgate.

The roots of the project go back to 1998 and a social moment between Smith and Taylor, when sparks flew over the idea of harvesting the constant energy of flowing water using modern technology. Kevin Lynch joined the pair to add a financial mind to the business. From there the project’s milestones have come only with great patience and perseverance, finding ways around, through, and over the regulatory hoops and hurdles that face anything new and different. (The project’s milestones are on line, with this issue of The WIRE, at nyc10044.com.) Permissions and licenses have involved the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC), and the Army Corps of Engineers. All together, regulatory delays put this week’s shining moment back by just about two years.

But government has helped, as well. Charlie Fox, Governor Pataki’s energy advisor, sent a staff member to monitor the permitting processes and help move things along.

In the east channel of the East River, parallel to Roosevelt Island, the planned turbine field will have generating units 50 feet apart laterally, with an upstream/downstream separation of something like 100 feet, though tests and performance results will probably produce changes in those numbers.

Whether Roosevelt Island at large ultimately uses the power from the planned RITE array of underwater turbines depends on some decisions yet to be made. Initially, Verdant will run the array as an independent power producer, but it could ultimately be leased or purchased by another company or, perhaps, by some entity like the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation. However that turns out, the people who watched Verdant’s turbines go into the water on Monday and Tuesday came away with a feeling that even if it wasn’t man’s first flight, something significant happened on Roosevelt Island on those days.

The WIRE has been reporting on the RITE project since 2002. For additional background, search on Website NYC10044 for "Verdant Power."