Tapping Fundy’s power

Nova Scotia Power has taken a step towards a major tidal power demon¬stration project using in-water turbines in the Bay of Fundy.

The energy company has not identified a location for the one-megawatt test project, except that it will be in the Bay, and will be installed by a new Irish partner, OpenHydro of Dublin.

The site most fre¬quently talked about is the Minas Basin and Channel area, which has been identified as the only possible one-giga¬watt production area in North America.

One megawatt is one million watts, while a gigawatt is a billion watts.

The Minas area site does have difficulties with winter ice and a lack of a nearby grid to carry the power.

Digby Gut was also identified in the study as a possible site, and Nova Scotia Power (NSP) already owns and operates the 20-megawatt tidal power plant at nearby Annapolis Royal.

NSP president Ralph Tedesco told The Courier in an early December interview that the company was planning a one- to two-megawatt demonstration project in the Bay of Fundy, and he expected an announce¬ment within a few weeks.

Unlike small-scale tidal power projects underway in the United Kingdom and the United States, the Nova Scotia project would be large enough for power utilities to study the commercial viability of tidal power.

NSP is looking for financial help from Sustainable Development Technology Canada, an arms-length federal corporation that finances and supports development of clean technologies that address issues of climate change, air quality and soil, and that deliver economic, environmental and health benefits to Canadians.

Company spokesperson Margaret Murphy has said the test project would be the first time that larger scale utility-size units would be developed and deployed anywhere in the world.

“For utilities to be interested, you really have to test large enough units—up to an over one megawatt—to make it worthwhile for power companies to see this as a viable energy source.�

Murphy said last week she expected it would be 2009 before the project is in place, and the underwater turbine cold cost as much as $12 million to develop and build.

In choosing OpenHy¬dro from Ireland, NSP bypassed ATEC Power Inc., of Windsor, N.S., which had worked with an American company to submit a proposal for a different underwater turbine.

Provincial news media report that ATEC Power had worked out a deal with A.F. Theriault in Meteghan River to construct major components.

The fate of the ATEC proposal is uncertain although ATEC manag¬ing director John Wight¬man is quoted as saying the company will proceed with its own test site.