N.S. Energy Firm Working To Harness Fundy Tides

The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world - but your home gets none of its power from tidal energy.

That's something Ron Scott hopes to change.

The Sussex native is president of Halifax-based Maritime Tidal Energy, a two-year-old company that is aiming to create a tidal power industry around the Fundy shore.

"It's like an oil well that never runs dry," Scott says.

"This would have a stabilizing influence on our energy prices in the long term and that could give us a competitive advantage."

Scott points to a 2006 study by the Electric Power Research Institute in California, which suggested the Bay of Fundy had the best tidal-power potential of any North American site studied.

His company has formed a partnership with Bristol, England-based Marine Current Turbines, which is currently testing a 1.2-megawatt turbine called SeaGen in Ireland. It doesn't require damming off and redirecting water flow, which is expensive to do and environmentally worrisome. Instead, SeaGen has movable rotors, much like an underwater windmill, which can be placed where the most powerful tides are flowing.

The Irish tidal plant, which features two 16-metre submerged rotors, would power 1,000 homes. Scott hopes New Brunswick or Nova Scotia Power might be interested in a 25 to 40-megawatt tidal power plant on one of several Fundy sites. Even though it's significantly smaller than the Irish trial, that would make it bigger than Nova Scotia Power's Annapolis tidal power plant, built in 1983, which can produce 20 megawatts.

The hitch? The technology is very new and no one is certain how much it will cost. Scott thinks governments will have to force utilities to explore tidal power, or they'll be more likely to go with cheaper and more technologically advanced wind power.

New Brunswick Energy Minister Jack Keir says he's hopeful about the potential for tidal power; the province is now evaluating several companies' proposals for test projects in the Bay of Fundy and, potentially, the St. John River. But while Keir says government might put money up for a tidal power project, it would have to be convinced the technology is reliable and can pay for itself in the long term.

"Wind you can almost buy off the shelf. You know exactly what it's going to cost. Tidal's not there yet," Keir says.

"The issue to me is clearly on technology, and how quickly the private sector can get the technology to market at a competitive price. The private sector is going to have to show us that the business case works."

Keir says New Brunswick won't legislate tidal power into existence. Once the technology is proven to be reliable, he says, it shouldn't have to be force-fed to a utility.

"The advantage that tidal has it that it's much more reliable than wind is. You always know just how much you're going to produce. You can't say that for wind."

All this is years away. The province is still consulting with businesses along the Bay of Fundy, and there would be months of environmental assessment needed on any proposed test site.

NB Power currently has no tidal power on the grid - or wind power, for that matter. Spokeswoman Heather-Anne MacLean says the first 96 megawatts of wind power will come online this fall, with another 200 to 300 megawatts to follow shortly after.

"Tidal is something that's talked about quite a bit, and it's of interest to us," MacLean says.

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