An application to develop a new tidal energy platform in Muskeget Channel between Chappaquiddick and Nantucket has been accepted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). It’s a proposal to generate electricity from turbines spun by tidal flow. The turbines would power generators by capturing the energy of the ebbing and surging ocean tides. However, this is no ordinary large corporation renewable energy story.

The original application was made by large corporation Natural Currents Energy Services, but the town and local private citizens of Edgartown have worked to get the permit for their own waters.

On March 31, FERC granted a permit for Edgartown and the University of Massachusetts to study the feasibility of the tidal-energy project, ruling that the town was entitled under federal regulations to get the first permit for the waters. The rights gives them 36 months to test whether the strong tides in the Muskeget Channel will provide enough energy to generate cost effective electricity.

According to the permit, the Edgartown-Nantucket Tidal Energy Plant Water Power Project calls for 50 ocean-current, turbine-generation units, with a 3-mile-long transmission line that would carry the electricity to land to be sold to local utilities.

The plan for the Edgartown-Nantucket Tidal Energy Plant Water Power Project is to deploy 50 ocean-current turbine generation units under the terms of the permit. To carry the electricity to land a 3-mile-long transmission line will also be laid and the generated electricity will be sold to local utilities.

It is estimated that the generated electricity at peak times will be around 2MW of power That would be enough energy to power about 1,500 homes at 1.3 kilowatts per home daily, according to a preliminary assessment by the Electric Power Research Institute.

This is an interesting story of a local community taking control of their own renewable energy needs in an innovative way.