Hydro Green Closes Funding Round

Hydrokinetic river power and tidal energy have shown tremendous potential to serve as an increasing source of energy. Proponents point to the fact that hydropower sources are abundant, renewable, efficient and clean. According to a 2007 study by the Electric Power Research Institute, the United States has the potential to generate at least 23,000 megawatts of river and ocean-based hydrokinetic energy by 2025, which is enough to serve roughly 12 million homes for a year.

 

So, changing tides and flowing rivers generate energy. Capturing that energy and turning it into electricity is what Hydro Green Energy, LLC (HGE) is all about.

 

HGE is a Houston-based technology integrator and project developer, and the company announced that it has closed its Series-A funding round to the tune of $2.6 million. The round was led by the Quercus Trust.

 

HGE is involved in the construction and operation of hydrokinetic power projects designed to generate electricity from moving water (river currents, tidal currents and ocean currents) without the need to build infrastructure such as dams, impoundments, and conduits.

 

Wayne F. Krouse, CEO and Founder of Hydro Green Energy is very pleased with the funding his company received, saying that the funding validates HGE’s vision and business strategy.

 

“With the closing of our Series-A round, Hydro Green Energy is now in the position to deploy its patented hydrokinetic technology at a number of projects throughout the United States,” Krouse said. These funds will be used to accelerate our growth, deploy our first commercially-operational project and to study additional project opportunities. This all bodes well for a significant expansion of our business later this year.”

 

HGE holds 13 Preliminary Permits from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for projects in Alaska and Mississippi, and plans call for generating electricity at its first project in Minnesota on the Mississippi River by late August. That project will be the first commercially operational, FERC-licensed hydrokinetic power project in the United States.

 

Hydro Green Energy owns U.S. and International Patents on a number of technologies, including a hydrokinetic turbine design that reportedly ranks among the highest power producing solutions in the industry.

 

An independent fluid dynamics study conducted by the NASA-sponsored Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program found the HGE turbine to be capable of producing over 240 percent more power than other currently available hydrokinetic turbines. The study was independently confirmed in 2007 by Concepts NREC and Hatch Energy, two energy consulting, engineering and management companies.

 

The U.S. Department of Energy believes that hydrokinetic solutions may help the U.S. to double its existing water energy output, which currently generates about eight percent of the nation’s energy.