Tidal power firm winds up Nova Scotia project, blames red tape and delays from Ottawa
BNN Bloomberg
A firm that hoped to generate electricity from the Bay of Fundy's massive tides is instead winding up operations after a regulatory struggle with the federal Fisheries Department.
Jason Hayman, chief executive of U.K.-based Sustainable Marine Energy, says investors are placing their Canadian subsidiary into bankruptcy after fruitless talks with the department. His firm will wind up all its operations in Canada, resulting in losses of approximately $30 million to $40 million, depending on sales of equipment and assets, he added.
"We're out .... The Canadian company will be placed in voluntary bankruptcy," Hayman said in an interview Friday. "It's very disappointing for our team and everyone else."
The company's catamaran-style tidal platforms — with turbines resembling inverted windmills — were praised as promising innovations when the firm installed them during a first phase of testing near Nova Scotia's Brier Island. The next step — now cancelled — would have been to bring them to the testing site about 200 kilometres northeast in the Minas Basin, where the world's highest tides flow.
