The road to innovation can be a long and winding one, but it might be hard to rival the path followed by the Ocean Renewable Power Co., of Portland, Maine, and its RivGen submersible electric power generating system, which is designed for installation on riverbeds and is based upon the company’s tide-driven units for maritime locations.
On April 17, ORPC hosted the commercial product launch of the RivGen power system in Brunswick, Maine, to mark the impending delivery—for the third time since 2014—of a version of the system to a remote river community in Alaska. Except this time, rather than a test unit, a full-scale, submersible system is scheduled to be installed in the Kvichak River in June as a 35-kW power source for Igiugig, a village with a population of 80 located about 240 miles southwest of Anchorage.