ORPC<\/a>‘s RiverGen turbine looks a little like the blades of two push lawnmowers, mounted end-to-end on a steel frame with pontoons.<\/p>\n Installed on a riverbed, its helical blades turn in the current, spinning a generator to produce power that is then sent via an underwater cable to the grid. When the unit needs to be serviced or repaired, it can be floated up to the surface along attached mooring lines.\u00a0<\/p>\n The RiverGen design derived from an earlier tidal power concept called TidGen, which was engineered to generate power from the heavy tidal currents flowing through the Gulf of Maine. After prototype testing in the early 2010s, ORPC shifted focus to smaller-scale models, installing two RiverGens in Igiugig, Alaska in 2015. The TidGen <\/a>remains in development.\u00a0<\/p>\n One 80 kilowatt RiverGen produces baseload power of up to 600 megawatt-hours a year, enough to supply electricity to 25 homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Various other so-called in-stream designs \u2014 including the Verdant <\/a>turbine installed for a short time on the US side of the St. Lawrence River \u2014 look more like a short-bladed wind turbine on top of a steel foundation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis project is first and foremost about water \u2014 a resource that moves constantly \u2014 that cities have lived alongside for centuries and that can now be part of how we power them,\u201d said Alexandre Paris, CEO of ORPC Canada, the Canadian arm of the US-headquartered company.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we are doing in Montreal is rooted in long-term experience, but it looks forward toward energy solutions that work with natural flows, respect their environments and can be adapted well beyond a single site.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe resource has always been there, and the technology is now ready,\u201d said Paris, formerly Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s head of innovation commercialization.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘The river power resource has always been there and the technology is now ready,\u201d says ORPC’s CEO, Alexandre Paris. <\/p>\n The three-year project received a $4-million boost last month from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) as part of the government\u2019s strategy to develop \u201ca more diversified, resilient and lower-carbon energy mix, by advancing technologies capable of delivering predictable, locally generated power,\u201d said Energy Minister Tim Hodgson at the time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Built around two 80-kilowatt RivGens, the project off Montreal is modest in size, but ORPC aims to wire in further units to expand it into a seven megawatt (MW) development and potentially connect it to another nearby site where an array could produce 10 MW. \u201cThis could be just the start,\u201d Paris noted, pointing to NRCan\u2019s estimates of 100 MW potential in the waters off the shores of Montreal.<\/p>\n ‘Reliable, consistent power’<\/p>\n \u201cThis is reliable, consistent power that is going to be installed for usage by critical grid infrastructure in Quebec,\u201d he told\u00a0Canada\u2019s National Observer.\u00a0<\/p>\n A study by Canada\u2019s National Research Council estimated the St. Lawrence River represents around 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of hydrokinetic power, while the country\u2019s total river system holds a potential\u00a0as high as 750 GW<\/a>, 30 times the capacity of\u00a0wind and solar farms operating in Canada<\/a> today.<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/rivergen.png\")
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