The biggest wind farm under development in Canada has been given the green-light by the Nova Scotia government, clearing the way for a tripling of clean energy capacity on the province’s grid and providing a major boost for planned green hydrogen production in the Maritimes.
The environmental impact assessment for EverWind’s 1.26 gigawatt Ocean Lake development was approved by the government, in a major step forward for the developer’s three-project 2.5 GW Guysborough complex. The complex is to be the main power source for a green fuels facility it is building at Point Tupper, some 60-km away.
“The Ocean Lake project signifies a commitment that goes beyond just renewable power,” said EverWind in a statement on the EIA approval. The wind farm is being built with Membertou Development, a company owned by the Mi’kmaq First Nation.
EverWind said the project could serve as a “vital model for the responsible development of clean energy initiatives in collaboration with Indigenous partners, host municipalities, and local communities,” adding that the go-ahead for this size of project was “a major milestone for renewable energy and rural economic development in Nova Scotia.”
Ocean Lake, being built alongside the Setapuktuk and Harbour Hills wind power projects under development near Goldsboro, would be based around 158 of the biggest model onshore turbines currently on the market, with power exported along an overhead line to the Point Tupper facility, expected online in 2028.
Jobs and tax takes
The newly announced wind development is expected to create 400 to 500 construction jobs and another 40 to 50 in long-term operations and maintenance, as well as injecting some $450 million into municipal tax coffers over the life of the project and contributing more than $1 million yearly to a general community benefit fund.
Construction of the multi-billion dollar development is planned to start in 2029 and be online five years later. At full generation, the wind farm is calculated capable of reducing Nova Scotia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by almost 2 million tonnes – equal to taking 420,000 gas-powered cars off the road.
The developer noted that the three wind farms in the Guysborough complex had all been designed to minimize impact to the landscape “by prioritizing the use of previously disturbed land and existing road networks.”
Nova Scotia currently has just over 600 MW of total installed wind power capacity but is the fastest growing provincial market in Canada, which has around a total of 19 GW in operation nationwide. Along with its onshore deployment, Nova Scotia is planning to launch its first offshore wind leasing later this year, where developers will bid on seabed acreage as sites to build projects.
The province is also home to the first wind farm to be wired into a pioneering renewable-to-retail program, the first in Canada. Renewable-to-retail is based around a clean energy direct-to-buyer sales model, bypassing utility Nova Scotia Power’s monopoly of the electricity grid.
Wind power in Nova Scotia has long struggled to find a route to market, due to its small population base and lack of industrial buyers. But hydrogen generation is expected to drive wind market growth as the sector matures and demand increases worldwide for green fuels for use in decarbonization of heavy industry, aviation and shipping.
EverWind aims to move phase one of its Point Tupper plant into operation within two years, with production of some 200,000 tonnes of green ammonia each year using “newly built” wind power from its growing project portfolio.” In phase two, the company plans to quadruple generation capacity.
Canada’s wind power fleet growth stalled in 2024, with new turbine installations falling to 1,434 MW from 1,775 MW in 2023. But the Canadian Renewable Energy Association sees “new momentum building fast” this year: the industry body’s latest market outlook points to as much as 51 GW of added wind power coming online by 2035.
