PG&E floats buoy electricity pact for 1,500 homes

[BTinSF]

PG&E floats buoy electricity pact for 1,500 homes
By Steve Gelsi, MarketWatch
Last update: 2:12 p.m. EST Dec. 18, 2007
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has inked a deal with Vancouver-based Finavera Renewables Inc. to buy power for up to 1,500 homes from ocean buoy generators to be located off the coast of California, the companies said Tuesday.

Pacific Gas & Electric, owned by PG&E Corp. (PCG) of San Francisco, entered into a long-term, two-megawatt commercial wave-energy power deal expected to deliver electricity by 2012. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
Although relatively small, the pact marks one of a few wave projects on the books for the U.S., which is moving to harness emission-free power as a way to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from conventional electricity sources such as coal-fired plants.

Finavera, a small-cap stock traded on Toronto's venture exchange, said the permitting process to float buoys in waters off the coast of Humboldt County not far from Eureka, Calif., is likely to take two or three years. "Energy transfer takes place by converting the vertical component of wave kinetic energy into pressurized seawater by means of two-stroke hose pumps," Finavera said. "The pressurized seawater is directed into an energy conversion system consisting of a turbine driving an electrical generator."
Electricity is transmitted to shore via an undersea transmission line.
Plans call for placing about 40 of Finavera's AquaBuoys floating in a star-shaped configuration.

The power purchase agreement calls for 3,854 megawatt hours of electricity a year, which will offset about 245 tons of carbon dioxide a year, according to Pacific Gas & Electric. "It is our intent to build wave-energy power plants globally that deliver clean, renewable electricity to homes and deliver value to our shareholders," said Jason Bak, chief executive of Finavera Renewables, in a statement. "This power purchase agreement is a significant step in reaching both of those milestones."

PG&E said it independently filed permit applications with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to develop generation projects that could convert wave energy off the coast of California's Mendocino and Humboldt counties into electricity. The company had said earlier this year it would weigh products from Finavera Renewables as well as Ocean Power Technologies and Ocean Power Delivery of Edinburgh, Scotland.

The wave deal comes on the heels of PG&E pacts calling for the delivery of 177 megawatts of solar thermal power and 150 megawatts of wind power. PG&E currently supplies 12% of its energy from qualifying renewable sources under California's Renewable Portfolio Standard program, with the aim of exceeding 20% under contract or delivered by 2010.

Finavera Renewables is also developing other wave-energy projects in the U.S., Canada and South Africa.

One other wave-power firm is Pennington, N.J.-based Ocean Power Technologies Inc. (OPTT) , which went public at $20 a share last April. The company's stock is down nearly 40% from that level. On Monday, Ocean Power Technologies reported a net loss of $1.9 million on revenue of $1.7 million for the second quarter ended Oct. 31, compared to a net loss of $2.3 million on revenue of $600,000 in the year-ago period. The company said it inked a deal with PNGC Power for an Oregon wave-energy project and was awarded additional funding for a contract with the U.S. Navy in Hawaii. The company reported a backlog of $7.9 million as of Oct. 31, up from $5.2 million in April.

Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...&dist=printTop

[oracle]

That s only a few megawatts....why can't they buy more of it?

I would like to see them buy 50 MW not only 3