Weekly Intelligence Brief

Hydro Green Energy caps off first funding round in growing “hydrokinetic” market

8 May 2008

Hydro Green Energy, another player in the burgeoning hydrokinetic sector, has just capped a $2.6 million first funding round led by the Quercus Trust.The Houston-based company holds 13 preliminary permits from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for projects in Alaska and Mississippi; it expects its first project, on the Mississippi River in Minnesota, to begin operations in late August. Another four projects that will be built downstream of existing U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ dams in Mississippi will generate close to 100 megawatts.

Similarly to Verdant Power, which we wrote about a few days ago, Hydro Green’s turbine arrays don’t require large structures or a damming of water to work. The arrays are mounted on barges, which allows for the raising and lowering of individual units — greatly facilitating control and maintenance operations. They also have a relatively benign environmental impact and, unlike bottom-anchored turbines, have little effect on the riverbed. Each turbine array has a maximum average capacity of 250 kW.