The company developing a massive alternative energy project that involves placing turbines beneath the Mississippi River has been awarded a two-year, $750,000 annual grant from the U.S, Department of Energy to carry its work to the next phase.
That alternative energy company is a 2-year-old firm based at 33 Commercial St. in Gloucester.
Free Flow Power Corp., which was founded in 2007 and has grown from about five to 15 employees over the past year, has reeled in one of 22 federal energy grants given to "advanced water power projects" across the country.
In Free Flow's case, the primary project in the works is a $3 billion plan to provide electricity to communities or major industrial sites along the Mississippi River, with the company harnessing the energy of America's largest river through up to 100,000 turbines, each some 3 meters in diameter, according to Free Flow General Counsel Dan Lissner.
The specific grant would cover a $1.5 million plan for siting and mounting the turbines, which are in production at BBW Composites, a division of Boston Boat Works in East Boston, Lissner said.
"It's an important step — we're jazzed about it," Lissner said of the grant, announced earlier this week by U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Lissner said Free Flow submitted the grant proposal in June, after company officials participated in a series of community meetings hosted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Louisiana and elsewhere regarding the project.
"There are a lot of factors involved with the sitings (of the turbines)," Lissner said. "There are the flow conditions, risk mitigation factors, and they have to be placed in coordination of navigation interests."
"The ideal spots seem to be around the outside of (river) bends," he added, "but they can't be in the navigable channels. So this grant will fund finding the best places to locate these turbines in order the get the most energy out of the water with the most minimal environmental impact."
Lissner said the Free Flow effort — which is dubbed the "Water to Wire Project," and could include turbines at up to 55 sites — is drawing extensive interest from communities along the river and from single-site industrial companies. Each turbine could generate a stream of 10 kilowatts of power — enough to power the equivalent of about 10 houses.
"There's been a lot of interest from communities and localities adjacent to our sites," Lissner said. "Obviously, energy from these sites could be sold into the electrical grid, whether that's a private utility or a municipality that generates its own power. Also, it could be steered to a single (industrial or commercial) source. It's an opportunity for them to supplement their needs, and there are a lot of consumers like that along the river."
Lissner said Free Flow, which could receive the first phase of funding from the Department of Energy grant by the end of 2009, with the federal fiscal year beginning, will not solely focus on projects 1,500 miles from its offices off the entrance to Gloucester's Fort neighborhood.
The hydrokinetic technology the company is advancing is also viable for harnessing power from salt water, and Lissner said Free Flow has fielded "expressions of interest" from officials in and around Cape Ann, the North Shore and across Massachusetts.
"We would certainly look forward to working with the city and the state down the road," he said. "But right now, our focus is on fresh water and rivers — and especially, right now, the Mississippi."
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