PARRSBORO - Generating electricity using the world's strongest tides took a huge step forward Thursday when Nova Scotia Power and OpenHydro deployed the first commercial scale in-stream tidal turbine in the Bay of Fundy off Parrsboro.
The one-megawatt turbine reached the Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy deployment site in the Minas Passage during the afternoon and was deployed shortly thereafter.
The turbine is now operational, rotating with the tides, collecting data and producing energy.
"Today begins a very important period of testing that we believe will demonstrate that tidal energy can be part of Nova Scotia's renewable energy future," said NSP president Rob Bennett.
The turbine's journey from Halifax to its deployment site took seven days. Once on site, the 400-tonne device was lowered in less than six hours to its intended position on the ocean floor by a purpose-build barge designed and developed by project partner OpenHydro.
Company CEO James Ives said placing the turbine represents a historic first for the province.
"For the first time, thanks to Nova Scotia Power's foresight and OpenHydro's technology, a commercial size in-stream tidal turbine has been successfully developed in what is undoubtedly one of the world's strongest tidal energy resources," said Ives.
The turbine is held on the seabed by a subsea gravity base designed by OpenHydro and fabricated by Cherubini Metal Works of Dartmouth.
Commotion on the ocean
Commotion on the ocean
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Comments
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- Hal Bartlett
- - March 15th, 2010 at 07:50:18
Way to go Nova Scotia !! This is ultimately going to be a great success for your region and a sound way to produce power. I have visited the Rance River tidal power site in France and it is so pristine, wonderful , and useful, after many years of use ! The Bay of Fundy project will be much more amazing and useful as it is a much larger project and does not dam up the inflow/outflow of water as does the site in France. I live in the US but vacation on the Minas Basin for several months each year at our summer home. I fully support this endeavour. Good luck Canucks !!
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- Albert
- - February 24th, 2010 at 23:45:58
Fantastic.
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- norm
- - February 24th, 2010 at 23:45:47
Thank goodness some local expertise and engineering in this pilot project,now to insist any large scale projects licence the production and implementation of such to Canadian companies.
If we could manufacture the Avro Arrow,and the Canada Arm then we'd best turn deaf ears to any entity that claims we can't produce these turbines.
