Federal regulators have approved the country's first project to tap the Pacific Ocean's waves for electricity off the coast of Oregon.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued Oregon-based Reedsport OPT Wave Park LLC a 35-year license to build and operate up to 10 1.5-megawatt PowerBuoy wave generators.

The company, a subsidiary of Ocean Power Technologies Inc., expects to build the first wave generator by year's end and install an additional nine machines by 2015. The operation will generate enough electricity to power 1,000 homes, the company said.

"The issuance of this license by FERC is an important milestone for the U.S. wave energy industry as well as for Ocean Power Technologies," Charles Dunleavy, the company's CEO, said in a statement. "The 35-year term of the license demonstrates the commercial potential of wave power, and this will support initiatives to secure financing for the project."

FERC also issued a license for a 1-megawatt wave energy project in Makah Bay off Washington state's coast in 2008, but the commission said the company has since surrendered the license (E&ENews PM, March 20, 2008).

The Energy Department has provided $4.4 million for the Ocean Power Technologies project in matching grants.

The 115-foot-tall power stations are shaped like dumbbells attached to the ocean floor with the top portion floating in the waves and generating electricity as water currents push pistons that drive an electric generator.

The first wave generator will be less than 3 miles off the coast of Reedsport, Ore., in Douglas County.

The machines will be deployed in ocean waters that are up to 225 feet deep and placed 330 feet apart in a 30-acre area.

An underground transmission line will connect the machines to about 5 acres of land in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area in the Siuslaw National Forest, which the Forest Service will oversee.

Ocean Power Technologies is still evaluating where the line will interconnect with the electric grid, said Greg Lennon, a company spokesman.

In 2010, FERC issued an environmental assessment that found the project would not harm the environment.

The final license requires Ocean Power Technologies to monitor and protect up to 40 federally listed threatened and endangered species that could live within the project's footprint, including numerous fish; loggerhead and leatherback turtles; and blue, fin, humpback, sei, sperm and killer whales.

Although the company has not disclosed the cost of the project, FERC filings show it will cost more than $3.4 million to operate all 10 generators annually.

But Lennon said the final cost of running the offshore plants will change as the technology is scaled up and manufactured on a larger scale.

Ocean Power Technologies has spent the past two decades developing the PowerBuoy wave generator and last year teamed up with Lockheed Martin Corp. to finance the project and conduct sea trials in Scotland before deploying the machines off the coast of Oregon (Greenwire, Feb. 9).

The company already has three buoys in operation in Hawaii, Scotland and off the coast of New Jersey (Climatewire, Nov. 14, 2011). The 40-kilowatt project in Hawaii was produced in collaboration with the Navy to boost the department's energy efficiency and was the company's first grid-connected device. The 150-kilowatt buoy in Scotland was successfully deployed last April.