Tyler Seal | MEL Candidate | Dec 16, 2022
Mentors: Bryce Wade, Natural Resources Canada
Abstract
Wind energy developments are one of the most mature and consistent ways to produce sustainable energy. Specifically in Canada, there are several locations which provide wind rich environments for these installations. As a maritime country, Canada boarders three oceans and has the longest coastline in the world at 244,000 km (Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 2005). In the past, offshore wind developments in Canada have been overlooked as they have not been financially feasible when
compared to the on-land wind generation alternatives. However, recent feasibility studies and wind measurements found a total of 20.4 PWh/year of electricity could be produced using commercially available wind turbines (Dong, Huang, & Cheng, 2021). This is roughly 30 times the amount of energy consumed by Canada in 2018.
The purpose of this project is to complete a gap analysis for the large-scale development of offshore wind in Atlantic Canada. Offshore wind energy generation is becoming more and more technically and financially feasible with several developments in North Sea in Europe, offshore in Asian countries and even in the United States. Canada also has an opportunity to enter this space with a large capacity of wind energy to harness along the Atlantic coast, refer to Figures 1 and 2 below for wind power density comparisons. This project specifically aims to understand what role the government can have in accelerating the installation of this technology.
The analysis first studied the current state of the offshore renewable energy generation in Canada including outlining the jurisdictions as well as the stakeholders and rightsholders in the area. The current projects in Canada were studied and compared to those being developed or operating in similar international jurisdictions such as the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Denmark. Summarizing the findings for this analysis, the key barriers to the development of offshore wind in
Canada were identified to be the government jurisdictional definitions, the division of benefits from future wind generation projects, the possible supply chain issues, and the development and distribution of additional energy generation capacity in Atlantic Canada. Furthermore, Indigenous relations with offshore renewable energy projects were also determined as a possible form of economic reconciliation and a way to benefit the developers during all phases of the project. Finally, mitigation methods targeted at each of the barriers were suggested based on successes in other jurisdictions and tailored to fit the Canadian landscape.