Oregon has called its renewable energy developers to apply for a share of $2 million in available grants for renewable energy projects, including tidal, wave and OTEC.
The Oregon Department of Energy (ODOE) has launched a competitive call for renewable energy projects from tidal, wave, ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), biomass, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, wind, landfill gas, and biogas sectors.
The total of $2 million available is distributed across two groups, based on the systems nameplate capacity, under ODOE’s Renewable Energy Development (RED) Grant program .
The Department has set aside approximately $500,000 for all renewable energy production systems with a nameplate capacity of 300kW or less, while $1.5 million in available grants will go to the systems with a capacity greater than 300kW.
However, ODOE has noted that the system must not exceed 35MW and that the applicant must be based, or have a business, in Oregon.
Grants are capped at $250,000 per system, and may not exceed 35% of the project costs, according to ODOE.
The applications are due by February 10, 2017.
As reported earlier, Oregon is making great progress towards exploiting its abundant wave energy resources with $40 million approved by the US Department of Energy for the construction of wave energy testing center, known as the PMEC-SETS.
It will feature four grid-connected test berths for proving full-scale wave energy technologies, with the expected date of completion by 2020.