Dallas-based Neptune Wave Power is now looking to finalize agreements over the next several months, as it prepares to put an energy generating buoy offshore, The Freeport News confirmed.

"We are looking to finalize agreement with the Government, Grand Bahama Power Company (GBPC) and the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA)," said president Scott Albury.

It'll be the first of many steps to change energy usage throughout the country and at the same time bolster Grand Bahama's economy as the launch centre for this project.

"We have one (letters of intent) in place and what we're trying to do now is basically firm up those agreements," added Albury. "We're hoping to get them done as soon as possible because we're hoping to deploy the first buoy for testing by the second quarter of next year.

"We've been working with the Grand Bahama Power Com-pany and we've had discussions with Environment Minister Earl Deveaux, the Minister of State for Environment Phenton Neymour and also Phillip Weech, director of BEST Commission."

The talks centred on placing a wave energy conversion device in the form of a buoy into waters off the island and run tests to see how well that one device supplies energy to the grid. The energy created from the wave currents will then be fed into the Power Company's grid and analyzed from that point on.

"It is our hope that once we get through the development phase, one bouy should be able to provide enough energy to power about 120 homes," said Albury.

Depending on the success of this first try out, an array of buoys will be deployed in the waters off the island and eventually taken to other islands in The Bahamas to provide an alternate supply of energy.

Neptune officials confirm they have had discussions with executives at the Bahamas Electricity Corporation who are receptive to bringing the technology to the nation's capital as its next stop.

"The plan is once we're through with the test phase, we'll interconnect a series of buoys and have them working in unison,"said Neptune's David Graeber." For Nassau that has a very high power demand, we just put more buoys in the water and for say Southern Andros, which has a low demand, we just put less buoys in the water."

And it's just the first phase for this project. A favourable outcome could lead to the construction of a manufacturing plant on Grand Bahama that would employ upwards of 100 people to operate the facility.

Rene Larrave, CEO of Neptune, said the economic benefits to the country alone are immense. He points to the overall goal of the company in exporting the energy buoys throughout the region as a prime example of how Bahamian workers will be promoted beyond just the development stages of the project.

It's a statement based on an integral training component of the project, which would see skilled Bahamian workers act in an instructor role for other countries in the Caribbean.

While the devices could be just as easily constructed in China-which could mean more affordable labour for the company Larrave said, the logistics of having it in Grand Bahama was a better fit.

It's the ideal site for the plant, said Albury, because of all the other complementary business on the island.

"Grand Bahama being on the major shipping lanes has the ability to bring raw material into the island, the industrial and technological capability of the GB harbour based-businesses can produce these buoys on a mass scale and we then have the ability to ship them throughout the Caribbean and the rest of the world," Albury added.

The wave devices will see power fed into the grid through an underwater cable to a centralized transformer. Albury, the Bahamian representative said there are no emissions, no fuel costs associated with these buoys. They also have very low maintenance and monitoring costs, said a statement from the company, with the technology said to be as competitive as any other alternative generation method.