The turbine was fully deployed and is now operational, rotating with the tides, collecting data, and producing energy.
The turbine’s journey from Halifax to the deployment site, located about three kilometres off the shore of Black Rock, took seven days. Once on site, the 400-tonne device was lowered in less than six hours to its intended location on the ocean floor by the purpose-built barge called the OpenHydro Installer. The barge and the deployment method were both designed and developed by OpenHydro.
The turbine now rests on the seabed held in place by a subsea gravity base designed by OpenHydro and fabricated by Cherubini Metal Works, a Dartmouth based company.
“Today is an historic first for Nova Scotia,” said James Ives, chief executive officer of OpenHydro. “For the first time, thanks to Nova Scotia Power’s foresight and OpenHydro’s technology, a commercial size in-stream tidal turbine has been successfully deployed in what is undoubtedly one of the world’s strongest tidal energy resources.”
