1-MW tidal turbine to be submerged this fall in Bay of Fundy
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
Nova Scotia Power has partnered up with Dublin, Ireland-based OpenHydro Group to install a 1-megawatt tidal turbine to the seabed in the Bay of Fundy. It’s OpenHydro’s first installation of its 1-MW machine and is expected to be fully operational later this fall. Over two years the two companies will collect operational data, including impacts on environment, robustness of equipment, and power generation. The sub-sea base was manufactured by a local company in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
The OpenHydro turbine is one of three being tested under a Nova Scotia government pilot program, which aims to tap the immense tidal-energy potential in the Bay of Fundy. The Electric Power Research Institute has identified the Bay as one of the best — if not the best — sites in North America to develop tidal-energy projects. In fact, it’s capable of realistically generating 300 megawatts of tital power. U.K.-based Marine Current and B.C.-based Clean Current are the other two turbine concepts slated for testing.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca