Abstract
On June 1, 2023, Marine Renewable Energy Collaborative of New England (MRECo) filed, pursuant to Part I of the Federal Power Act (FPA), an application for an 8-year pilot project license to construct, operate, and maintain its proposed Bourne Tidal Hydrokinetic Test Site Project No. 14775 (Bourne Tidal Project, or project). The 50-kilowatt (kW) hydrokinetic project will be located on the Cape Cod Canal (canal) in Barnstable County, Massachusetts and will be within the boundary of the Cape Cod Canal Navigation Project, which is administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). The project will occupy 0.84 acres of federal land managed by the Corps.
Commission staff developed the hydrokinetic pilot project licensing process from the Integrated Licensing Process to meet the needs of entities, such as MRECo, who are interested in testing new hydropower technologies while minimizing the risk of adverse environmental impacts. The goal of the process is to allow developers to test new hydrokinetic technologies, to determine appropriate sites for these technologies, and to confirm the technology’s environmental and other effects without compromising the Commission’s oversight of the projects or limiting agency and stakeholder input.
As outlined in Commission staff’s pilot project licensing process white paper, a pilot project should be (1) small, (2) installed for a short term, (3) located in non-sensitive areas based on the Commission’s review of the record, (4) removable and able to be shut down on short notice, (5) removed, with the site restored, before the end of the license term (unless a new license is granted), and (6) initiated by a draft application in a form sufficient to support environmental analysis. After review of MRECo’s pilot project application, Commission staff concluded that the Bourne Tidal Project meets these criteria.
As discussed below, this order issues a pilot project license for the Bourne Tidal Project.