Waterotor International, a hydrokinetic energy company, unveiled its Megarotor system design today called “The Big Cajun” at the Floating Wind Solutions 2022 convention in Houston, Texas.
The 20 Megawatt Big Cajun is the first hybrid ocean system that simultaneously extracts energy from slow moving water and wind. This worldwide, patented technology utilizes unique rotor stacks in low water speed and conventional wind turbines to extract large amounts of power.
Currently under development in Louisiana, the Big Cajun is Waterotor’s first commercial ocean deployment. Its first application allows Big Oil to reduce its carbon footprint and drastically reduce costs by replacing diesel-generated electricity production on platforms that each consume 33,000 gallons of fossil fuel per day at an annual cost of over $70 million per year.
“Waterotor’s technology will provide access to a massive, untouched source of renewable energy for the first time,” said Fred Ferguson, Waterotor’s Founder & CEO. “No one has successfully commercialized energy production from flat moving water. This is the beginning of a new era.”
“Within the next year, we expect a major global corporation and/or power company to license our technology for ocean-produced electricity,” Ferguson said.
Waterotor has identified several potential sites for The Big Cajun, including an initial site located off Suriname and Guyana. Western boundary currents are among the fastest non-tidal ocean currents on Earth, reaching speeds of more than five miles per hour (2.5 meters per second) and containing as much as 100 times the combined flow of the world’s rivers.
The Big Cajun is being developed with major contractors under the direction of marine architect Herman J. Schellstede. This project will be a boost to American manufacturing and Louisiana’s economy.
U.S. Capital Global (USCG), San Francisco-based investment banking firm, is engaged by Waterotor to raise further funding for the project.
