A French firm and its partner in South Korea are eyeing plans to develop wind projects off Nova Scotia’s coast.
Affiliated companies Q Energy France and Hanwha Ocean said Wednesday they have jointly participated in an early phase of the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Energy Regulator process that could lead to formal bids for seabed licenses to develop offshore wind.
The offshore regulator says its purpose at this stage is to review and identify eligible companies that can participate in the next call for bids. Companies had a 90-day window to submit their applications, which ended Tuesday.
The early interest of companies is feeding into an ambitious plan by the provincial government to significantly expand renewable energy production.
Junu Lee, CEO of Q Energy, said in an interview Wednesday the company hopes to contribute to Canada and Nova Scotia’s transition to clean energy through large-scale and sustainable offshore wind development.
“From our understanding, this offshore project would be a very important initiative in Nova Scotia… we believe this initiative would be helpful to the economic growth in Nova Scotia as well as Canada,” Lee said, adding that this application represents an early step in the process.
Ken Ilaqua, the company’s head of offshore development, said that if they are pre-qualified through this process, an estimated timeline for commissioning an offshore wind project would be sometime in 2035.
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“Because there is a need for the construction for sure… but also for the transmission line and the export of the electricity generated, that will take some time. So basically I think we are talking about 2035,” Ilaqua said.
Lee noted this was just an estimate and that the company would follow the regulator’s timeline.
Colleen Fiske, a spokesperson for Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Energy Regulator, said the regulator will not be sharing the number of applications received through the pre-qualification process nor names of companies that applied.
“To pre-qualify, companies were required to meet certain financial, technical, and legal and social criteria,” Fiske said in an email Wednesday. Interested companies were required to submit an application that demonstrates how they can meet this criteria in order to develop a project.
In June, Premier Tim Houston said the province’s plan to license enough offshore wind farms to produce five gigawatts of electricity would be increased eightfold to 40 megawatts, well beyond the 2.4 megawatts Nova Scotia needs.
He called on Ottawa to help cover the costs of his new Wind West project, saying the excess electricity could be used to supply 27 per cent of Canada’s total demand.
“Nova Scotia is on the edge of a clean energy breakthrough,” the Progressive Conservative premier said in an online video, adding the province is poised to become an “energy superpower.”
Earlier this month, the offshore energy regulator announced that it will begin studying areas of the ocean that could be home to the first turbines for the Wind West project. The Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Energy Regulator said it is looking for a company to conduct a regional assessment of the studies and preliminary work needed on four patches of ocean earmarked for potential offshore wind development.
The first phase of Wind West is estimated to cost about $60 billion and would produce about five gigawatts of power by 2030. About $40 billion would be for turbine infrastructure, with another $20 billion for new transmission lines. The province has not indicated who would pay for these costs and how they would be divided. However, the provincial government has said it expects to get a four per cent royalty on the project.
If additional phases are fully constructed, the province says the project could generate more than 62 gigawatts, about a quarter of Canada’s total energy capacity.
The areas under consideration for the first phase include Sydney Bight, northeast of Cape Breton, and three more parcels off the Eastern Shore. The project envisions connecting those parcels — French Bank, Middle Bank and Sable Island Bank — to the mainland along an abandoned gas pipeline corridor. Sydney Bight would come ashore separately.
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