Digby Tidal Project on Track

A tidal energy developer hopes to begin producing electricity from $30 million worth of proposed Digby County projects in four years.

Fundy Tidal Inc. recently received provincial approval for two projects and is expecting the provincial Energy Department to soon OK a third one.

“Our current goal is to have machines operating in 2015 to 2016,” company president Dana Morin said in an interview Thursday.

The province approved a 1.95-megawatt project in Digby Gut, the passage near the town’s harbour, in December.

On Tuesday, the department announced a 500-kilowatt project in Petit Passage, between Long Island and Digby Neck.

Both developments are part of the province’s community feed-in tariff program, which is allows small-scale power producers to sell their renewable electricity to Nova Scotia Power at a rate set for the next 20 years.

The third proposal is for a 500-kilowatt project in Grand Passage, between Long and Brier islands.

Morin said the Westport-based company is working on launching a Community Economic Development Investment Fund to finance the projects.

Federal and provincial environmental assessments of the projects are also underway.

Morin said Fundy Tidal is still working with various technology partners to find the right turbine design for each site.

“They’re all good machines, the ones we’re looking at. They’re suited for one environment or another and certain conditions. We’ll move through the technology here over this year.”

A tidal research project in southwestern Nova Scotia began in November and involves university researchers, the Nova Scotia Community College and the company. The project is funded by the province through the Offshore Energy Environment Research Association.

“We’ve got equipment in the water in Digby Gut right now measuring currents,” Morin said. “All of our researchers from Acadia and Dal are really busy.”

The research will continue until April and will also collect tidal data in Shelburne and Yarmouth counties.

The Fundy Tidal president said he expects the Digby Gut project will be the first to generate tidal power.

The other two sites will take “a little longer” because the distribution system doesn’t have the capacity for their electricity.

“We have to get into storage solutions, which take a little longer, more research and work, which isn’t a bad thing.”

Each site could have one turbine or as many as four, depending on machine size, he said.

Fundy Tidal has also proposed two projects in Cape Breton’s Grand Narrows and Great Bras d’Or Channel, but those projects will take longer to get off the ground.

A national ocean energy group said the approval of the Digby County projects is a big boost for the developing tidal energy industry worldwide.

“It’s very exciting and it certainly has attracted the attention of technology developers,” said Chris Campbell, executive director of the Ocean Renewable Energy Group.

“A lot of people are looking at Nova Scotia and saying, ‘Is there a slot for me somewhere in the future of these developments?’.”

The association, which has offices in Halifax and Nanaimo, B.C., includes utilities, developers and academics. Morin is a member of its executive.

Story by Joanne Alberstat

The Halifax Chronicle Herald