CANADA

The Canadian marine renewable energy sector progressed steadily in 2016, while achieving some significant milestones for the Canadian industry. Notably, the first grid connected tidal turbine was deployed at the Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE). FORCE experiences water speeds up to 5 m/s on ebb and flood tides.

Canada is fortunate to have plentiful resources available in tidal current, river currents (hydrokinetic) and wave energy across the country. Canada is well positioned to support the development of this industry with its three open-sea test sites for tidal current (FORCE), river hydrokinetic (Canadian Hydrokinetic Turbine Test Centre (CHTTC), and wave energy (Wave Energy Research Centre). Canada’s opportunity in this industry is great; as such, Canada has been working at the national level as well as the provincial level to support this industry to ensure that Canada is successful in the development and deployment of marine renewables.

The Canadian marine renewable energy sector has continued to develop supportive tools to assist technology developers and project developers to advance their technologies. In 2016, many new resources became available, such as the Supply Chain database, a map of Canadian clean energy resources and projects, and a tidal energy atlas for Nova Scotia.

Canada has also continued to excel on understanding the marine resource through the West Coast Wave Initiative (WCWI), for their advanced wave measurement and mapping technologies and skills, and understanding sustainable tidal energy development through the Acadia Tidal Energy Institute (ATEI). Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and National Research Council (NRC) are continuing to work collaboratively to understand the detailed extractable resource, array configurations, and the potential market opportunities of Marine Renewables in Canada.