Nova Scotia claims its winds are ‘world class.’ It needs data to back that up

“World class” is among the superlatives used by Nova Scotia’s government to describe the strength of the province’s offshore breezes. The phrase is echoed by federal officials, industry associations, engineering consultants and virtually everyone else who promotes Wind West, the broad plan to build expansive offshore wind farms off the province’s coasts.

Yet federal officials tacitly acknowledge that hard evidence for that claim is sparse. Tim Hodgson, the federal Energy and Natural Resources Minister, announced last week that Ottawa had committed $100-million to Wind West, $5-million of which was immediately allocated “to the deployment of floating light detection and ranging (FLiDAR)–mounted buoys” to begin measuring offshore wind and ocean conditions.

Four years after its unveiling as one of Atlantic Canada’s prime economic development schemes, much of the basic data collection needed to prove Wind West’s viability has only just begun, and willingness from the province and private investors to commit funds remains unclear. But it’s already a recipient of a wide range of federal support, including significant open-end financing, and is a candidate for accelerated permitting with the Major Projects Office.

In 2022, the government of Premier Tim Houston announced plans to open offshore wind development seabed leases to competitive bids in 2025, with the goal of developing five gigawatts of generating capacity by 2030. Nothing about the proposal was modest; it was nearly double the province’s entire installed capacity at the time. Yet Mr. Houston went further, asserting that his province’s offshore wind resource could represent as much as 66 gigawatts of capacity – enough, he said, to meet more than one quarter of Canada’s electricity requirements.

In its 2023 budget, the federal government earmarked $3-billion over 13 years for a variety of electricity projects, including “science-based activities to help capitalize on Canada’s offshore wind potential” off Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Houston wants Ottawa to refer Wind West to its new Major Projects Office. Although that hasn’t happened, the MPO has identified Wind West as a component of an even larger project it seeks to advance, dubbed the Atlantic Energy Strategy.

Nova Scotia is betting big on its offshore wind power project

Wind conditions are obviously relevant when selecting a site for an offshore wind farm. Seemingly minor differences can matter because the relationship between wind speed and power generated is exponential: A turbine spinning in a wind that’s blowing 20 kilometres an hour will generate double the electricity of one in a 15-kilometre-per-hour breeze.

A high-level plan published in 2023 said the province had carried out “preliminary geospatial analysis” to assess offshore wind resources, including wind speed, and found “relatively consistent economic potential for offshore wind.”

But there was a problem: The underlying data was scant at best.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s map of marine observation buoys and coastal stations, which capture atmospheric, oceanographic and meteorological data, shows only seven monitoring buoys moored off Nova Scotia, six operated by Environment and Climate Change Canada. Not one is located in areas designated for future offshore wind development, says Larry Hughes, a research fellow at the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy at Dalhousie University.

In a recent commentary published in allNovaScotia, an online news publication, he contrasted that paltry number with NOAA’s proliferation of buoys along the length of the U.S. Eastern Seaboard; even Lake Ontario and Lake Erie have more. He explained that Nova Scotia’s buoy data is largely supplemented by ship logs and meteorological data on storms.

“What it boils down to is, other than people saying we have a great wind resource, we really don’t know much about it,” he said in an interview.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows only seven buoys off Nova Scotia, none of which are located in areas proposed for offshore wind farms – leaving a data gap concerning wind conditions that Ottawa is eager to bridge.

Buoy locations are approximate

john sopinski/the globe and mail, Source: novascotia.cl; noaa

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows only seven buoys off Nova Scotia, none of which are located in areas proposed for offshore wind farms – leaving a data gap concerning wind conditions that Ottawa is eager to bridge.

Buoy locations are approximate

john sopinski/the globe and mail, Source: novascotia.cl; noaa

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows only seven buoys off Nova Scotia, none of which are located in areas proposed for offshore wind farms – leaving a data gap concerning wind conditions that Ottawa is eager to bridge.

Buoy locations are approximate

john sopinski/the globe and mail, Source: novascotia.cl; noaa

Wind West’s backers, including Natural Resources Canada, understood from the outset that the project faces numerous data gaps. A study by consultancy Power Advisory LLC suggested that high-resolution wind speed data was required, with minimum cell sizes of one square kilometre, and that wind speed measurements were needed at two elevations, perhaps 80 metres and 120 metres above the sea’s surface.

Engineering consulting firm Stantec and wind energy software company WindSim later simulated Atlantic Canada’s wind resources and assembled what it described as a “high-resolution wind atlas.” But the government clearly believes that kind of modelling is not sufficient to satisfy developers. In videos promoting the $100-million of federal spending on Wind West, Sean Fraser, the member of parliament for Central Nova, said that “before turbines go in the water, we need actual data on the resource itself.”

Charlotte Power, press secretary for Mr. Hodgson, wrote in a written response to questions that this “foundational data work” will ensure the success of the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Energy Regulator’s call for bids in winter 2027.

Dr. Hughes said the buoys deployed by the government should capture between three and five years of data, which would reveal patterns including seasonal variability and extreme events such as storms. Data from a single buoy could be relevant for several hundred square kilometres of ocean, so smaller offshore banks could be covered by just a couple of sensors.

“It just strikes me that this has been left very late,” he said.

In addition to wind studies, developers will require detailed geotechnical information on the sea floor. They’ll also need evidence about local fish and bird populations and a whole lot else. Although some of that data already exists, a 2024 report by a five-member committee tasked with assessing the prospects for offshore wind development in Nova Scotia warned that it was “a nascent industry in a largely data poor environment.”

That report concluded: “There are many data gaps that will need to be addressed if offshore wind is to succeed.”

Only $5-million of the federal government’s $100-million commitment was explicitly allocated in last week’s announcement. Ms. Power said the money is “being drawn from existing Government of Canada resources,” including the natural resources department’s Smart Renewables and Electrification Pathways Program.

The remainder, she added, could support “a range of activities, including the drilling of boreholes, which will help collect critical meteorological, oceanographic and wind-resource information.”

David Pickup, director of electricity for the Pembina Institute think tank, said the federal announcements are consistent with the approach taken in countries with more mature offshore wind markets.

He pointed to the Marine Data Exchange, a digital platform created in 2013 that allows Britain’s offshore industry to fulfill data-sharing requirements on a variety of matters, including bird and fish populations, engineering and design plans and wind resource assessments.

“Collecting wind and marine data early helps reduce uncertainty for developers – an especially important step, given the scale of these projects and the likelihood that they’d be advanced through competitive procurement processes,” Mr. Pickup said.