Atlantis Resources Corporation, a world-leading tidal technology and project development company will test one of the world’s largest tidal turbines in the Bay of Fundy’s aggressive marine environment.
Atlantis was one of five respondents to a request for proposal issued by the province last fall for a fourth berth-holder to participate in its Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE) project.
The company will work in partnership with Lockheed Martin and Irving Shipbuilding to customize, build, deploy and monitor their one megawatt AK-1000 Mark II turbine at FORCE’s Minas Passage test site. The project will involve more than fifty per cent local content. Lockheed Martin, which has 130 full time employees in Nova Scotia, will be responsible for engineering design elements, production drawings and procurement of major turbine components along with systems testing.
Irving Shipbuilding, with more than 1200 shipyard workers in the province, will oversee construction of the turbine base and assembly of the device in conjunction with other local suppliers. Deployment of the Atlantis turbine is planned for summer 2012.
Atlantis joins three existing berth-holders in the FORCE project: Nova Scotia Power, in partnership with Open Hydro of Ireland; Minas Basin Pulp and Power, working with Marine Current Turbines technology; and Alstom of France using their Clean Current technology.
FORCE is scheduled to install four subsea transmission cables to connect the test turbines to the electrical grid in the summer, giving Nova Scotia the largest in-stream tidal power capacity in the world.
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Offshore WIND staff, April 16, 2012; Image: atlantisresourcescorporation