Offshore wind project proposed for Nova Scotia
On Wednesday, DP Energy and SBM Offshore unveiled their intention to build this province’s first offshore wind farm.
Dubbed Nova East Wind, the 300- to 400-megawatt project would see the companies build around 25 massive 18-megawatt floating turbines in this province and moor them in a field 20 to 30 kilometres off the coast of Guysborough County.
“It’s not a massive project, it’s a stepping-stone project that can lead to bigger things,” said Simon De Pietro, chief executive officer of Irish renewable energy developer DP Energy.
“It will help all the parties from supply chains to regulatory bodies to understand what an offshore wind farm is. It’s a painful exercise going through it. These are big infrastructure projects everywhere from the blade tip to the busbar on grid. It’s all work and it all needs to be done right. Environmentally right and with social licence from coastal communities, from fishers and from First Nations.”
The companies have a tight timeline – aiming to begin building the turbines by 2027 and flowing electrons onshore by 2029 so as to aid Nova Scotia in being off coal by 2030.
Meanwhile, this country does not yet have a regulatory framework for offshore wind.
The federal and provincial governments have announced plans to enact regulations by 2025. They will be administered by the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board, which will be renamed the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Energy Board.
Ambrose Wattez, director of project development for SBM Offshore, said the companies are fully funded to do the expensive planning, design and environmental assessment work which he roughly estimated to cost some $100 million.
He said work began in this province preparing for the project two years ago.
The ultimate price is a moving target of between $1 billion and $1.5 billion to build the project.
It will produce very expensive electricity – estimated at $100 per megawatt hour.
The companies don’t yet have a purchase and sale agreement with Nova Scotia Power, but have been in talks with the utility for the project that would tie into this province’s grid.
Once design, consultation, environmental approvals and purchase agreement have been achieved, the companies will be seeking financing to build the project.
DePietro equated Wednesday’s announcement with planting a flag – and welcoming the ensuing discussion with fishermen, First Nations and coastal communities.
The day before the companies announced the project publicly, they held an open house in Goldboro where they met with community members and commercial fishermen.
There, they heard from commercial fishermen concerns about being displaced by the windfarm that would occupy some 70-100 square kilometres.
Wattez said that his company wanted to work with fishermen to see if there were ways the project could be designed or moved to an area that will limit the impact on the fishery. In areas off the coast of New England, offshore wind developers have paid out millions to fishermen to compensate for the impact of their projects.
Wattez said discussions about forms of compensation would come after they worked with fishing groups to realize what the potential impacts of their project are and ways they could be mitigated.
