Reedsport OPT Wave Park filed an application with the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this summer for a preliminary permit to test the feasibility of a wave park.
Reedsport OPT Wave Park — a subsidiary of the publicly traded New Jersey-based Ocean Power Technologies — filed an application with the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this summer for a preliminary permit to test the feasibility of a wave park about three miles off the coast of Reedsport, the first utility-scale wave power project in this country. The project would eventually generate 50 megawatts from 200 buoys at a depth of between 150 and 210 feet of water, configured in a one-mile by five-mile grid. Electronic Power Research Institute, a nonprofit research group, estimates that waves off the Oregon coast could supply about 20% of the state’s total electrical demand.
