When it comes to renewable energy, solar power is still one of the darlings of the clean-tech sector.
But in coastal B.C., with its dearth of sunshine and abundance of tidal waters, it’s the moon, not the sun, that holds the biggest store of potential emission-free energy.
Despite this vast untapped power bank, and despite the fact that B.C. has spawned a number of tidal power innovators, Nova Scotia, not B.C., is now poised to become North America’s sea-power leader, thanks to the Maritime province’s aggressive policy of subsidizing the nascent technology with taxpayer subsidies in the form of feed-in tariffs. Without similar tariffs, B.C. may be chasing away a new industry, say tidal power proponents.
“As far as Canada is concerned, this started in B.C., and now B.C. is at risk of losing it,” said Clayton Bear, CEO of Calgary-based New Energy Corp., which plans to provide two 250-kW turbines (enough to power 125 to 150 homes) for a $6.5 million tidal power demonstration project in Canoe Pass near Campbell River.
Vancouver’s Blue Energy spent more than a decade trying to get a tidal power project approved in B.C. before giving up and looking to Scotland for potential partners.
Clean Current Renewable Energy Systems – another Vancouver company – conducted a successful tidal power demonstration project at Race Rocks in the Strait of Juan de Fuca between 2006 and 2008, and has since licensed its technology to Alstom Hydro, a French company that plans to deploy it in the Bay of Fundy.
Although it is more reliable and predictable than either wind or solar and has the potential to produce utility-scale volumes of electricity, tidal and wave energy face bigger hurdles than other green energy technologies. Cost is atop that list of hurdles.
“We have a horrible chicken and egg,” said Chris Campbell, executive director for the Ocean Renewable Energy Group (OREG), which promotes tidal energy projects in Canada.
“People on the coast see the resource, and it just makes sense to them [to harness it]. The challenge is that it’s not very easy to try anything in the marine environment. This is why feed-in tariffs are absolutely critical. Right now, there doesn’t seem to be an appetite to talk about implementing a feed-in tariff because no matter how small it is, it will be paying above competitive commercial rates.”
New Energy is proceeding with the Canoe Pass project, even though the company has no agreements with BC Hydro to buy power at a subsidized rate. Without that agreement, Canoe Pass is likely to turn out like Clean Energy’s Race Rocks project – a demonstration of technology that will end up producing power somewhere outside B.C.
“We have good government support – federal and provincial – in terms of grants,” Bear said. “But in order to turn it into a commercial project, we need a power price that supports this kind of project. … The technology is going to go to the East Coast because the West Coast isn’t doing anything.”
Because it’s in a marine environment, tidal power faces stiffer environmental regulations than other clean-energy technology, and it can conflict with fishing and marine traffic. Scale is another problem. Tidal power’s capacity increases exponentially with the size of the turbine’s blades and velocity at which they turn, so to make it commercially viable, generators must be big and be installed where tidal flows are strong, all of which increases project costs.
Campbell said BC Hydro’s rates for renewable energy projects range from $0.10 to $0.13 per kW/h. Tidal power proponents say they need to be on par with Nova Scotia to be viable: $0.65 per kW/h.
Tidal power proponents in B.C. are not optimistic that BC Hydro will match Nova Scotia’s subsidies because it doesn’t need to. Whereas Nova Scotia relies on coal for most of its electricity generation, B.C. already has abundant, clean and relatively cheap hydro power, not to mention an abundance of natural gas.
But not all of B.C.’s power is clean. Many north-coast communities still use diesel to generate electricity. According to a 2008 Hatch Energy report commissioned by the BC Ministry of Energy and Mines, Haida Gwaii alone burns 9.4 million litres of diesel fuel a year to generate electricity. In March 2009, the report recommended a tidal power demonstration project on Haida Gwaii. Asked whether it plans to act on the report’s recommendations, the Ministry of Energy and Mines referred questions to BC Hydro, which did not respond to interview requests by press time.
Small projects in remote coastal areas, where diesel power is neither cheap nor environmentally friendly, might be the most viable application of tidal power in B.C. Vancouver startup Mavi Innovations Inc. has developed small 50-kW generators that can be used on smaller projects for remote off-grid communities.
The company is working on a pilot project in the Prince Rupert area, where the cost of diesel could make small-scale tidal power viable.
“There is a market in remote communities,” said Mavi technical director Voytek Klaptocz. “Some people are paying up to $1 per kilowatt hour [for diesel].” •
