The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has issued the first-ever commercial license for tidal power in the United States.

The license, issued earlier this year, is for Verdant Power’s Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) project in New York City’s East River. Under the 10 year license, Verdant Power plans to develop a 1 MW pilot project in the East Channel of the East River built using up to 30 commercial-class underwater turbines, which are driven by the river’s strong currents.

An EnergyBiz article on an earlier stage of this pilot program (carried out in 2007) noted that tidal power has a number of advantages over some other renewable energy generation approaches. For one, tidal power is available 24 hours a day. And perhaps more important from a utility’s perspective, tidal power is not intermittent. In fact, the tidal-induced underwater currents that drive the Verdant Power turbines are very predictable.

The granting of this first-ever license is significant in that past tidal and other hydro-related programs have suffered incredible delays in the licensing process. Verdant Power’s license application was submitted under FERC’s newly established Hydrokinetic Pilot Project Licensing Procedures, developed to allow for the advancement of U.S. hydrokinetic technologies (tidal, river, wave power), while maintaining FERC oversight and agency input.