EASTPORT – A Florida company that wants to demonstrate the feasibility of harnessing the energy-generating potential of tidal currents expects to launch a prototype turbine-generator unit today that they hope will do the job.

Ocean Renewable Power Company LLC of Tampa, Fla., and Denmark, Maine, is the force behind the project.

The TGU is expected to be submerged near Dog Island. Twenty-five feet wide by 4 feet around and weighing about 5,000 pounds, the unit contains two horizontally mounted cylindrical water turbines with a generator placed between the turbines. The $1 million prototype is about one-third the size of a full-scale commercial unit.

The company plans to test the unit over a three-week period and anticipates it could generate as much as 15 to 25 kilowatts of power in a 6-knot current.

ORPC president and CEO Christopher Sauer, 62, first unveiled the concept in 2006. Earlier this year, the company received a $300,000 development award from the Maine Technology Institute. The money was used for the engineering of the prototype.

If everything goes according to plan, the prototype will be launched this morning.

“High tide is about 10 a.m., so we want to hit it just before high tide on the way up,” Sauer said. Using a small tugboat from the Eastport Port Authority, the unit will be placed on a temporary mooring at Deep Cove for the next few days.

The next step will be the “push test.” “We will just put the TGU … about 30 feet below water and then we will start pushing it ever so slowly. … We have a current-measuring device on the TGU itself so we will know exactly what flow is being encountered by the TGU,” Sauer said.

If the unit passes all its tests, it will be moved next week to its permanent home near Dog Island. “The first day we will probably lower the TGU and probably experience a full tidal cycle and then bring it up and inspect it and make sure everything is fine. Assuming everything is working and looks good, then we will lower it and we hope then to keep it in the lowered position for at least seven days,” he said.

The seven-day test will determine how well the unit and its support frame are working. Developers also will test how much electricity the prototype will generate.

The company has had support from around the state, including from Maine Maritime Academy in Castine.

“They want to put up a test facility there in Castine, and they have tremendous capability with anything that goes in the water,” Sauer said. “We’ve talked with them about collaborating and we support what they want to do in Castine and they support what we are doing here.” He said MMA staff will be looking over the company’s shoulder to verify the test results independently.

Since ORPC also has a site in Cook Inlet and Resurrection Bay in Alaska, the next step will be to build a larger unit and test it off the waters of Anchorage, Alaska.

“It will be the next generation,” he said. “It will have some other bells and whistles that will get it closer to being a commercial unit.”

The company needs to raise between $12 million and $20 million in venture capital to build and install full-scale Ocean Current Generation modules at its sites. The modules would use two to four turbine TGUs and would include extensive monitoring equipment to assess potential impact on the marine environment.

At the same time, the company will be seeking federal permits through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“What we hope is we can get it in the water by the fall of 2009 and would have all the data by 2010. We would hope to then get our FERC license by the summer of 2011,” he said.

Sauer had high praise for Washington County workers who have been involved in the project. “They are charged up. They are as excited as we are,” he said.

Energy generated by the turbine will be sold to the New England power grid.

The company also plans to market its units worldwide.

Eastport City Manager George “Bud” Finch said the project fits with the city’s concept of economic development for the area that also includes shipping, aquaculture and tourism. “It fits because there is a natural reason for this industry to be here. It is of the right time in that alternative power sources have to be found,” he said.

The company eventually would like to employ around 100 people to assemble the units and maintain them worldwide.

“I don’t know about the turbines themselves or the generators – who knows where they will be manufactured – but we will need an area that has a good work force, has an excellent deep water port access and available land,” Sauer said.

Diana Graettinger may be reached at bdncalais@verizon.net 454-8228.