Floating in-stream tidal energy technology will be used to deliver up to 9MW of tidal energy to the Nova Scotia grid in Canada
Sustainable Marine Energy (SME) and Minas Tidal LP (MTLP) have agreed to co-develop their adjacent berths at the Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE), utilising SME’s PLAT-I floating in-stream tidal energy technology to deliver the tidal energy to the Nova Scotia grid.
Jason Hayman, managing director of SME, commented: “Over the past three years we have focused on developing and proving up our technical solution which has been strongly supported by our major shareholders; SCHOTTEL and Scottish Enterprise.
“This enabled SME to build and test the first PLAT-I demonstrator in Scotland, and since this time last year we have continued the testing in Nova Scotia, at Grand Passage, in preparation for our entry into FORCE.”
Delivered in phases
The combined project is to be called the Pempa’q In-stream Tidal Energy Project and will be delivered in phases starting next year. For Phase 1, SME will deliver three next generation PLAT-I platforms, each producing up to 420kW, providing a combined capacity of 1.26MW.
Energy generated by the three tidal energy systems has been licensed to be sold via a power purchase agreement (PPA) to Nova Scotia Power.
Project financing for the first phase through equity and debt is being provided by Hamburg-based reconcept Group, which will also finance further phases of the project.
A joint venture company, Spicer Marine Energy Inc., will be responsible for deploying and operating the tidal energy systems for the duration of the project.
By Rebecca Jeffrey