‘Significant milestone’ being reached for marine energy

Sustainable Marine is on track to start producing vast amounts of clean energy from Nova Scotia's world-famous tidal streams, after completing construction of its substation at Grand Passage, Digby County.

“We are on target to connect the platform to the substation in the first quarter of next year,” said company CEO Jason Hayman. “This will be a significant milestone for marine energy in Canada as it will be the first floating tidal platform to connect directly into the power grid.”

The firm has constructed an onshore electrical substation in the Bay of Fundy, which will harness untapped power from some of the world's highest tides via the PLAT-I tidal energy platform – which is now installed and due to be grid-connected and generating energy by early 2022.

The platform was constructed at A.F. Theriault and Sons Ltd. and launched earlier this year.

“Nova Scotia was built with a pioneering and adventurous spirit taking full advantage of its natural resources to drive growth and prosperity,” said Hayman. “Nova Scotia benefits from some of the world's most powerful tidal energy streams, and with rapidly advancing floating offshore wind technology, there is enormous potential to transform the future energy mix from harmful diesel and coal power generation to ultra-low impact marine renewables.”

Currently stationed at

Grand Passage, the PLAT-I floating tidal platform is being used to deliver a rigorous environmental monitoring program, which has been underway since 2018, testing state-of-the-art underwater cameras, hydrophones, echosounders and tracking devices to record marine life interactions in the high-flow environment.

Hundreds of hours and terabytes of data have been collected and analysed to date. Sustainable Marine is also collaborating with the Ocean Tracking Network ¬– a global aquatic research, data management and partnership organization based at Dalhousie University – and have installed two acoustic receivers on the platform to detect tagged fish.

Data collected will help inform understanding of the movement of aquatic species around the system.

Sustainable Marine has also engaged with Mi'kmaq community leadership and organizations as part of this project.