Company planning to place turbines in Ohio River: area industries would use resulting electricity

A Massachusetts company wants to install several turbine generators on the Ohio River bed in Daviess County to generate electricity for area industries.

Free Flow Power Corp., a two-year-old company in Gloucester, Mass., has filed applications with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for two permits in Daviess County for sites between the Natcher Bridge and the Owensboro Riverport.

"The licensing process is lengthy," Jon Guidroz, Free Flow's director of development, said Wednesday. "The best-case scenario for starting work is four years."

That would mean late 2012 at the earliest.

Free Flow takes its name from the hydrokinetic generation of electricity, which it says captures energy from moving water without requiring a dam or diversion.

"We use turbines which look like underwater jet engines and work like a windmill to generate electricity," Guidroz said.

Each turbine is about 6.5 feet in diameter, and they are configured in groups of six attached to pilings on the riverbed.

The electricity produced by the turbines goes to a converter on the shore and then into power lines to the company's customers.

"We don't need to harm the river to get the electricity from it," Guidroz said.

Free Flow's Web site quotes a Nov. 30 policy statement by the FERC:

"Estimates suggest that new hydrokinetic technologies, if fully developed, could double the amount of hydropower production in the United States, bringing it from just under 10 percent to close to 20 percent of the national electric energy supply. Given the potential benefits of this new, clean power source, the commission has taken steps to lower the regulatory barriers to its development."

Free Flow says if its initial energy projects are approved they will generate enough electricity to power 1.7 million homes or to replace four conventional power plants.

The application says the company wants to "produce and display tens of thousands of turbines."

Developing the system along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers will cost millions, but Guidroz said, "It's pretty cheap compared to the cost of building dams."

The company is planning 22 sites on the Ohio River and 59 on the Mississippi.

"We think they will be profitable," Guidroz said. "But it's like picking up pennies on an interstate. It takes a lot of them to make money."

The two Daviess County locations will have the capacity to produce about 541,000 megawatts of electricity a year. Owensboro Municipal Utilities can produce that amount in about 51 days at its coal-fired plant.

Installing the turbines will take a matter of days, "maybe even hours," Guidroz said. "We can't interfere with river traffic very long."

Several jobs will be created to provide maintenance of the turbines if the project wins final approval, he said.