'Pioneer' Canadian offshore wind farm announced in Halifax

Promoters unveiled the first proposed offshore wind project for Nova Scotia in Halifax on Wednesday.

Nova East Wind wants to install 20 to 25 floating wind turbines 25 kilometres off Goldboro on the province's Eastern Shore and supply up to 400 megawatts of electricity to the province's power grid by the end of the decade.

The project would represent about 20 per cent of Nova Scotia Power's current generating capacity, which is 2400 megawatts.

The company is a partnership between majority owner SBM Offshore, a global ocean energy service company based in Amsterdam, and developer DP Energy of Ireland.

Ambroise Wattez, SBM director of project development, told reporters the project will cost between $1 billion and $1.5 billion.

The electricity is intended for domestic consumption to replace energy currently generated by Nova Scotia Power's coal-fired plants, which must close by 2030. The electricity would be transported along the ocean bottom by an undersea cable. The route follows an abandoned offshore gas pipeline corridor.

It is not for export like so-called "green hydrogen" in which electricity is used to convert water into hydrogen or ammonia that's then shipped to international markets and converted back to electricity.

Both Canada and Nova Scotia are promoting offshore wind. Since there are no regulations in place yet to permit offshore wind projects, the federal and provincial governments are jointly developing rules to govern them.

Regulations are expected by 2025.

Nova East has already begun survey work and hosted an open house on Tuesday saying it needs to get started.

"If you want to deliver before 2030 you've got to start early," said Wattez.

"We've been working behind the scenes for two years to effectively demonstrate that there is a path to do it. I also think the authorities also need some kind of pioneer to say 'yes, we propose to do that.' That's all we can do is propose the project and the authorities will decide."

The ocean footprint of its turbines — each towering several hundred metres tall — would be roughly 150 square kilometres, Nova East CEO Simon Dipietro said.

Compensation for fishermen displaced by the proposed wind fields has not been determined. Officials from both companies said Wednesday at a media event that they are committed to working with First Nations and local communities to come up with some form of compensation for work disrupted or displaced by the wind farm.

That has yet to be worked out, along with the price of the electricity produced. But the promoters are expecting to earn a premium price.

The company said it currently expects it needs to earn about $100 per megawatt hour. That's more expensive than the price paid for onshore wind projects, which is about $53 per megawatt hour.

The company said those costs will likely come down over the next decade.