Marine Renewable Energy Promotion Act of 2009 - Requires the Department of Energy (DOE) to establish a marine renewable energy research and development program, separate from any DOE wind and hydropower program, focused on: (1) developing new marine renewable energy technologies; (2) reducing the manufacturing and operation costs of such technologies; (3) increasing the reliability and survivability of marine renewable energy facilities; (4) integrating marine renewable energy into the national electric grid; (5) identifying opportunities for cross pollination and development of economies of scale between offshore wind and marine renewable energy sources; (6) identifying the environmental impacts of marine renewable energy and ways to address negative impacts; (7) applying advanced systems engineering and system integration methods to identify critical interfaces and develop open standards for marine renewable energy; (8) transferring the resulting intellectual property to industry stakeholders as public information through published interface definitions, standards, and demonstration projects; and (9) developing incentives for industry to comply with such standards.
Requires DOE to establish a marine-based energy device verification program to provide a bridge from the wave, tidal, current, or thermal energy capture device design and development efforts underway across the industry to commercial deployment of marine renewable energy devices. Sets forth as purpose of the Program to fund, facilitate the development and installation of, and evaluate marine renewable energy projects, in partnership with the Electric Power Research Institute, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Marine Sciences Laboratory, and the Sandia National Laboratories in order to: (1) increase marine renewable energy experience; and (2) build and operate enough candidate devices to obtain statistically significant operating and maintenance data.
Establishes an Adaptive Management and Environmental Fund to provide grants for complying with requirements through assessment and demonstration of the environmental effects of marine renewable energy projects.