A contract to develop a tidal energy pilot project for a public utility provider in Washington State has been won by the Irish company OpenHydro. While little detail of the contract has been made public, it was confirmed that the contract with Snohomish County Public Utility District is to develop a tidal energy project in the Admiralty Inlet region of the Puget Sound.

The pilot project, which has received a grant from the US Department of Energy Advanced Water Power Projects, involves the installation of up to three tidal turbines in the Puget Sound, which will be connected to the electricity grid via subsea cables. OpenHydro will install the turbines using its purpose-built installation barge, the OpenHydro Installer. Installation is expected to begin as early as 2011.

"OpenHydro's vision is to develop arrays of tidal turbines, silently and invisibly generating renewable energy under the world's oceans. This is a significant contract for our business and it marks a further step toward achieving that goal. We truly believe that tidal energy will make a considerable contribution towards meeting SnoPUD’s renewable energy targets and we are extremely excited to be working with such a visionary partner," said James Ives, Chief Executive, OpenHydro.

"We're thrilled to partner with OpenHydro to develop a clean, emission-free energy source that has the potential to make a significant contribution to meeting our region’s growing energy needs," said PUD General Manager Steve Klein. "Tidal energy can be sited right here in Western Washington and easily integrated into our existing electrical system without requiring hundreds of miles of new transmission lines."