One of the three projects involved in Nova Scotia’s $76-million effort to generate electricity from the Bay of Fundy has fallen behind schedule for the third time.
Minas Basin Pulp and Power of Hantsport and its U.K. partner Marine Current Turbines Ltd. have decided to redesign its prototype to be tested on the bottom of the Bay of Fundy, causing a delay in the installation date.
The company is now targeting a launch date of 2012 for its device, which resembles a submerged windmill.
"We want to be able to find a way to put these things in the sea cheaper," John Woods, Minas Basin’s vice-president of energy development, told reporters after speaking at the 5th annual Renewable Energy Conference in Halifax Wednesday.
He said the proposed underwater turbine is operating on a smaller scale in waters off Northern Ireland by its technology partner Marine Current Turbines Ltd. and would work in the Bay of Fundy.
However, the companies want to move to a "next level" of technology in the hopes of reducing the cost of producing electricity from the tides.
Minas Basin had hoped to launch its SeaGen underwater turbine in 2010, and previously the group thought it could install another prototype in late 2009, spending between $15 million and $18 million to build and launch.
Considering the development costs, Woods wants to generate electricity from the turbine at about $5 million per megawatt installed; that’s still double the cost of wind power.
They would consider that a victory.
"At least we have put the stake in the ground where we need to get, and if we can get to $5 million per megawatt by 2015, we are in the lead," said Woods.
He said consumers in the end will have to pay for the electricity, and if it’s priced too high customers won’t be interested in using the renewable energy from the Bay of Fundy.
Minas Basin isn’t the only tidal developer facing challenges in trying to harness the tides.
Nova Scotia Power’s 400-tonne underwater turbine, the first to be launched last November, has run into trouble. Seven days after the turbine was lowered to the Bay of Fundy floor, the company lost contact with the wireless sensors attached to the device. It is not connected to the grid.
Nova Scotia Power and its partner, Irish firm OpenHydro, have gone months without collecting critical data from the prototype, which sits in 20 metres of water.
The tidal turbine, its tripod-shaped base, the barge that carried it and the deployment method were all designed by OpenHydro. The company has visited the offshore site four times and tried unsuccessfully to trigger the acoustic modem that uploads the information being collected by the sensors.
James Taylor, Nova Scotia Power general manager of power production, said the next step is to try lowering an "information pack" with a magnetic attachment to the gravity base of the turbine.
The pack is being designed by OpenHydro, with a trial currently going on at the European Marine Energy Centre in Scotland, he said Wednesday. "If that trial is successful, and we expect it will be, they will bring it over here.
"It’s like a vibration monitor so it would understand how the turbine generator is working a little bit more," said Taylor.
The murky waters and strong currents in the Bay of Fundy prevent the company from sending divers to the site to fix the problem.
Nova Scotia Power did not have any officials participating in the conference’s panel on tidal power.
NSP spokeswoman Patty Faith said there was "nothing new to report" on tidal power and the company participates in a number of renewable energy conferences.
The other developer, Clean Current Power Systems Inc. of British Columbia and its partner, international industrial giant Alstom Hydro, is also redesigning its proposed Mark III turbine, pushing its launch date to 2011, said Woods.
The $9-million underwater cables, travelling eight kilometres from the test site in the Minas Passage to shore, are expected to be ordered within the next two months and installed next year, he said.
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