New Regulations to Help Guide Nova Scotia as Tidal Energy Leader

New provincial tidal energy regulations will allow early stage projects to connect to Nova Scotia's power grid.

Energy Minister Andrew Younger today, Jan. 21, announced the regulations that will help developers invest hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new renewable industry in the province.

"Nova Scotia is becoming a world leader in innovation for in-stream tidal turbines and other emerging technologies, and I am fully committed to advancing this industry here and around the globe," said Mr. Younger. "I made a commitment to the tidal industry that we would get these regulations done by the end of January and I am pleased we now have them approved.

"These regulations will help ensure the industry can invest money and create jobs to install 15 to 20 megawatts of tidal-power capacity in Nova Scotia over the next five or six years, and more in years to come."

The government worked with industry to develop the regulations for large-scale tidal developments connected to the electricity grid with a capacity of at least 500 kilowatts.

The regulations were developed after the province's Utility and Review Board set a feed-in tariff for the tidal projects last fall.

It will likely be early 2015 before a turbine, or a group of turbines, are in the water at the Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE) in the Minas Channel and producing electricity on a trial basis. The timeline estimate will be updated after successful bidders for berths at FORCE are announced in March.

The regulations for the application and approval for a feed-in tariff is available at www.novascotia.ca/just/regulations/regs/14-2014.pdf.