White Paper: Licensing Hydrokinetic Pilot Projects

The staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is issuing this guidance as part of the Commission's ongoing effort to support the advancement and orderly development of innovative hydrokinetic technologies. Hydrokinetic projects generate electricity from the motion of waves or the unimpounded flow of tides, ocean currents, or inland waterways. Pilot projects are small, short-term, removable, and carefully-monitored projects intended to test technologies, sites, or both. Some hydrokinetic pilot projects may be appropriate for expedited license application processing under the Commission's existing regulations.

Hydrokinetic pilot project licensing procedures were proposed in a white paper on August 31, 2007 and at a technical conference in Portland, Oregon on October 2, 2007. The Commission and staff received oral comments at the conference and written comments thereafter. This white paper uses a format of frequently asked questions (FAQs) to address the issues raised in the comments. The FAQs are divided into the following topic areas: general information; coordination with federal, state, and local resource agencies, Indian tribes, nongovernmental organizations, and members of the public; information needs; monitoring, performance standards, and modification/shutdown/removal; preliminary permit/pilot project license/commercial build-out; and next steps. This paper also provides the criteria for using pilot project licensing procedures, step-by-step pilot project licensing guidance, application information needs, and standard license articles.