PARRSBORO, N.S. – Several months of preparation and hours of waiting came to a successful end just offshore Sunday as a 300-tonne tidal turbine was successfully deployed on the floor of the Minas Passage near Parrsboro.
“Everything went well and we had a safe and successful deployment,” Stacey Pineau, senior advisor of communications and community relations with Cape Sharp Tidal said on Monday.
The turbine, which is 16-metres in diameter, was lowered to the floor of the Bay of Fundy over a period nearing two hours.
“It’s a complex marine operation that involves a number of different vessels and about 40 people,” Pineau said. “Almost everyone working on the deployment is on the water.”
Pineau said a month of planning went into the deployment and crews were racing against the clock because of a limited tidal cycle to complete the work.
“Everything needs to go according to plan,” she said.
Cape Sharp Tidal is a joint venture between Halifax-based Emera Inc. and OpenHydro, a tidal power technology company headquartered in Ireland.
Now that the turbine is in the water, the next step is to connect the device to the power grid. Work to connect the cable from the turbine to the undersea cable began Sunday and continues. The power the turbine generates will be connected to the grid, but it’s not ready just yet to begin producing electricity.
The turbine was hauled to the site on a custom-built barge from Saint John on July 18 and arrived at the deployment site a day later.
The two-megawatt turbine, at full capacity, generates enough power to supply the electrical needs of 500 homes for one year, but Pineau stressed there are many tests the turbine needs to pass before it begins to work at full capacity, if it ever does.
Pineau said the project is in its commissioning phase and power will be available intermittently.
This is not the same turbine that was deployed in November 2016 and retrieved last June. Pineau said it’s a similar design, but has been modified and upgraded based on what was learned from the initial deployment.
Upgrades focused on creating better mechanical and environmental efficiencies.
“We’ve applied everything from that first deployment to the new turbine we have deployed,” she said. “This is a demonstration project, so our main focus is research and development and taking what we learn to better understand the potential for in-stream tidal energy and see if it can be produced sustainably.”
Upgrades that made focused on improving operational efficiency in addition to the environmental monitoring equipment upgrades, which focus on making sure the environmental monitoring devices are gathering as much data as possible and as efficiently as possible.
The monitors, including all the environmental monitors, provide real-time updates to onshore computers.
“Environmental monitoring is something we’re very focused on, so we do have a very detailed environmental effects monitoring program,” she said, adding environmental monitoring devices on the turbine, and on the ocean floor near the turbine, include a Gemini sonar device, and icListen Smart Hydrophones, which are produced in Great Village. “We conduct environmental monitoring related to the turbine in the near field, in the area in close proximity to the turbine. FORCE conducts additional environmental monitoring. They take a broader look at the area at further distances from our turbines.”
(With files from Dave Mathieson)
Twitter: @ADNdarrell
