Canada’s Sustainable Marine Energy Ltd. has been placed into voluntary bankruptcy and has appointed Deloitte Restructuring Inc. as trustee.
The tidal energy company was not able to secure the authorizations it required or agree on a viable path forward with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to deliver its flagship demonstration project at the Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE) tidal energy demonstration site. Because of this, Sustainable Marine is not able to meet its obligations to its project financing partners, according to a release.
Last year, Sustainable Marine harnessed the tidal currents in the Bay of Fundy and sold power to Nova Scotia’s grid using its floating in-stream tidal platform (PLAT-I). The achievement marked a significant milestone for the company and Canada’s marine energy ambitions, demonstrating that the immense tidal energy resource — containing four times the combined flow of every freshwater river in the world — can be used, delivering up to 2,500 MW of clean and predictable energy.
Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) provided significant grant support, and the project at Grand Passage was delivered under a license provided by the Province of Nova Scotia. DFO authorized operation of a single platform during daylight hours only. Sustainable Marine planned to leverage the learning gained from testing of environmental monitoring technologies and methodologies performed in Grand Passage to deliver the Pempa’q Instream Tidal Energy Project at FORCE, in the Minas Passage.
This step-by-step approach enabled the team to manage technical risks and prove the low environmental impact of its technology, through an ambitious and advanced Environmental Monitoring program, Sustainable Marine said. With support from fish tracking and subsea imaging experts, more than 5,000 hours of video data was amassed over five years, beginning in 2018. Findings remained consistent with all other studies completed over the past 20 years of the deployment and operation of horizontal-axis in-stream tidal turbines, with no negative interactions or harm to marine life observed, the company said.
Sustainable Marine’s next project at FORCE would be delivered in phases, starting with a three-platform array.
