Free Flow Power Reports Positive Results from Turbine Generator in Mississippi River

Aug 19, 2011 - smartenergynews.net

Photo credit: Free Flow Power

New Orleans – Free Flow Power, a Boston-based developer of clean energy projects, announced that it has been successfully operating one of its underwater “hydrokinetic” electrical generators in the lower Mississippi since June 20, 2011, in the first full-scale test of the technology. It is the culmination of a three-year R&D project funded by a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as private capital.

The turbine is installed on a research surface platform, hosted at Dow Chemical’s dock along the Mississippi River at Plaquemine, La. It includes instrumentation that allows Free Flow’s research team to monitor key performance metrics like stream velocity, electrical current and voltage. Results have demonstrated Free Flow’s hydrokinetic generator to be competitive with published data on similar devices being developed around the world, according to the company.

“The equipment is handling the Mississippi River conditions without power interruptions or degradation,” said Ed Lovelace, Free Flow’s chief technology officer, in an announcement.

Free Flow Power is pursuing approvals from State and Federal regulators led by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to install arrays of its hydrokinetic turbines at various locations in the Mississippi River that would provide “enough power to represent a viable alternative to conventional power plants,” according to the company.