SNMREC Test Site One Step Closer to Becoming a Reality
FAU's Southeast National Marine Renewable Energy Center's (SNMREC) proposed project to harness power from the Gulf Stream recently passed a major hurdle. The U.S. Department of Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management found that the project will have no significant negative environmental impact, allowing SNMREC to move to the next step of negotiating a five-year lease to conduct testing on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. HBOI has played a significant role in the project by engineering pieces of the turbines that will be used to evaluate ocean currents. The turbines are expected to be deployed in the Gulf Stream for the first time in mid-2014.