Tidal Energy in Nova Scotia, Canada: The Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE) Perspective

Ocean energy developments are appearing around the world including Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Norway, France Portugal, Spain, India, the United States, Canada and others. North America’s first tidal energy demonstration facility is in the Minas Passage of the Bay of Fundy, near Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, Canada. The Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE) is a non-profit institute that owns and operates the facility that offers developers, regulators, scientists and academics the opportunity to study the performance and interaction of instream tidal energy converters (usually referred to as TISECs but called “turbines” in this paper.) with one of the world’s most aggressive tidal regimes. FORCE provides a shared observation facility, submarine cables, grid connection, and environmental monitoring at its pre-approved test site. The site is well suited to testing, with water depths up to 45 meters at low tide, a sediment -free bedrock sea floor, straight flowing currents, and water speeds up to 5 meters per second (approximately 10 knots). FORCE will install 10.896km of double armored, 34.5kV submarine cable — one for each of its four berths. Electricity from the berths will be conditioned at FORCE’s own substation and delivered to the Provincial power grid by a 10 km overhead transmission line. There are four berth holders at present: Alstom Hydro Canada using Clean Current Power Systems Technology (Canada); Minas Basin Pulp and Power Co. Ltd. with technology partner Marine Current Turbines (UK); Nova Scotia Power Inc. with technology partner OpenHydro (Ireland) and Atlantis Resources Corporation, in partnership with Lockheed Martin and Irving Shipbuilding. In November 2009, NSPI with technology partner OpenHydro deployed the first commercial scale turbine at the FORCE site. The 1MW rated turbine was secured by a 400-tonne subsea gravity base fabricated in Nova Scotia. The intent of this paper is to provide an overview of FORCE to the international marine energy community during OMAE 2011 taking place in Rotterdam, Netherlands.