Floating Power to build wind, wave plants in Oregon

A new Oregon company will announce Thursday plans to commercialize and manufacture floating power plant technology that generates electricity from waves and wind.

Floating Power Inc. is a joint venture between Lake Oswego-based boutique merchant bank BridgeWorks Capital and Floating Power Plant Inc., a Danish company that spent the last 12 years developing and testing the power-generating platform called "Poseidon."

"I think we have the opportunity to have a significant impact as wave joins solar, wind and biomass as a key part of the solution for renewable energy globally," said Mark Waller, president of BridgeWorks Capital.

The immediate economic impact of the company's formation, at the outset, is minimal.

Waller said the company will employ about a half-dozen people initially and is on the hunt for office space in the Portland area.

But Waller said his intent is to make Oregon a manufacturing base for the Poseidon platforms, the latest of which — buoyed off the Danish coast — measures 121 feet by 82 feet and weighs 350 tons.

That could be a potential boon for one or more regional manufacturers.

"We could create a significant number of jobs as we negotiate deployments of the technology," Waller said. "It’s likely we would work with one or more of the marine yards that have capacity to build barges or other large devices.”

The new company becomes the latest addition to an Oregon wave energy industry that Eugene-based research firm ECONorthwest projects could eventually generate $2.4 billion in annual economic impact.

Floating Power joins Corvallis-based Columbia Power Technologies LLC, New Jersey’s Ocean Power Technologies Inc., Scotland’s Aquamarine Power, Dallas-based Neptune Wave Power and M3 Wave Energy Systems LLC of Salem among others that have chosen Oregon to test or manufacture wave energy devices.

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@ErikSiemers | 503.219.3418 | esiemers@bizjournals.com