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Developers of renewable energy sources have tapped the earth, wind and sun. A Massachusetts company hopes to return our attention to water, and it’s eyeing Saylorville Lake as a power source.

Free Flow Power Corp. of Gloucester, Mass., submitted an application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in September 2009 for preliminary approval to install two hydroelectric turbines below Saylorville Dam.

It was notified in December that its application for a preliminary permit had been accepted, meaning it cleared the first phase of a process that will see the company’s water-power dreams pass through a series of state and federal agencies.

A decade could pass before final approval

If the company prevails in a permitting and licensing process that could take 10 years, the Saylorville operation would be just the second on a federally controlled impoundment in Iowa, with the other being at Lock 19 on the Mississippi River near Keokuk, said Jim Bartek, hydropower coordinator for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Rock Island District.

Ramya Swaminathan, executive vice president for development for Free Flow Power, said her 3-year-old company is tapping into renewable-energy movement by designing state-of-the-art turbines and developing hydroelectric projects.

“At the very base level, we have a mission to develop clean, renewable sources of energy,” she said. “Hydro is overlooked. There was feeling that whatever energy was produced by hydro had been tapped out. We are part of a reawakening.”

Saylorville caught the company’s attention because its 125-foot-tall dam provides an opportunity to install conventional turbines at what could be less cost than using more high-tech models.

Swaminathan said the overall cost of the project has not been determined.

“We are the very early state of the proposal,” she said.

Water power project includes bat research

If the preliminary permit gains final approval, Free Flow Power will have a three-year window in which potential competitors are locked out of attempting to develop the Saylorville site, Bartek said.

During that time, Free Flow Power will go through a licensing process that includes obtaining the blessings of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, Bartek said.

To do that, the company must account for the impact of the turbines on aquatic life as well as on life above water. For example, it must determine whether the federally protected Indiana brown bat sets up a nursery in trees near the site, according to a letter from the Fish and Wildlife Service. In addition, the project cannot affect prairie bush clover, a native plant that once grew in dry soils, but probably is not living near Saylorville Lake, also according to the Fish and Wildlife Service letter.

Though this is Free Flow Power’s first venture into Iowa, it is no stranger to federal regulators. Bartek noted that the company has taken something of a “shotgun” approach in applying for permits to develop hydroelectric power along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.

Looking at river power

The company has received preliminary approval for more than 50 projects on the Mississippi.

Free Flow Power is taking a more traditional approach to installing turbines at Saylorville, but some of its projects are attention-grabbing because they involve the use of hydrokinetic turbines, which can be suspended from bridges, for example, or used near low-head dams that have been common sources of power generation in Iowa.

However, many of those dams have been abandoned, and they are frequent targets of environmentalists, who claim the dams cause upstream silting in rivers. In addition, they present hazards to boaters because of eddies that are created below them.

Regulations are an issue

The Iowa Power Fund is researching a proposal that would be a joint effort between the University of Iowa and a private company to use a hydrokinetic turbine at the Burlington Street Dam in Iowa City.

The Power Fund’s Brian Crowe said the regulatory environment is especially rigorous for hydroelectric power. For that reason alone, the organization, which operates out of the Iowa Office for Energy Independence, is essentially putting the sponsors’ request for $630,000 on hold while it further investigates a variety of issues.

“The Power Fund has seen several hydroelectric project applications, and is currently considering one project for funding,” he said. “As a part of the due diligence process, we are still reviewing the FERC process to see if the project will be able to be completed in a reasonable period of time.”

Even the federal government has had some qualms about hydroelectric power.

The Army Corps of Engineers conducted studies in the 1980s, trying to determine whether it was a legitimate source of energy that should be promoted and constructed by the federal government.

“That program just kind of died for lack of interest,” Bartek said.

But he did concede that the private development of hydroelectric power is experiencing something of a comeback.

“We’re seeing a lot more activity with focus on green energy sources,” he said. “The technology is out there now with different turbines that can handle the lower heads on lock and dams.”