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Green hydrogen hopeful EverWind Fuels has to submit more information to the province before it can move forward with one of its proposed wind farms in Guysborough County.
Nova Scotia Environment Minister Tim Halman released his environmental assessment decision on the Harbour Hills Wind Project on Thursday. In it, he said the company failed to complete baseline field surveys for about 6,000 hectares covering the location of 30 wind turbines.
Surveys have to be completed within a year, and they have to consider moose, bats, birds, turtles, plants and lichen, the minister said.
Company spokesperson Claire Parsons said EverWind is reviewing the minister’s decision.
“Our plans for Harbour Hills have not changed, and we remain committed to advancing the project and working with Nova Scotia Environment and Climate Change to provide the additional information requested and continue the environmental assessment process.”
The 107-turbine Harbour Hills project is one of three massive wind farms EverWind has proposed for Guysborough County. It’s also working on four smaller projects in other parts of the province.
The company ultimately plans to use wind energy to fuel a green hydrogen and ammonia production facility in Point Tupper, N.S.
Potential buyer lost
In the form of ammonia, EverWind intends to export its product across the Atlantic. In 2022, the company said it had two potential buyers in Germany, both of whom signed memorandums of understanding to offtake up to 500,000 tonnes of ammonia annually.
But, as first reported by the Halifax Examiner, EverWind has lost one of those potential buyers.
E.ON Group, a multinational electric utility company headquartered in Germany, said it “deprioritized” all hydrogen-related work last year.
“Current green gas market developments in Germany indicated a significantly slower ramp-up than expected, and the overall extent or speed of the ramp-up remain hard to foresee,” a company spokesperson said in an email.
Green hydrogen has been labelled as one solution for Canada to meet its net zero goal by 2050. CBC’s Frances Willick finds out if green hydrogen is really better for the environment.
Parsons said the shift at E.ON is having no impact on EverWind’s plans as it was just “one of many potential European customers.”
“Demand for clean fuels is growing and we remain confident in the market for our product and in our ability to secure the offtake required for the first phase of the project.”
Parsons said EverWind is still working with Uniper — the other German firm that signed a non-binding agreement four years ago — and other undisclosed European partners. She would not say how many.
Bear Head Energy stops providing updates
Meanwhile, another company hoping to produce green hydrogen in Nova Scotia has gone quiet.
Around the same time as EverWind, Bear Head Energy also pitched the construction of a green hydrogen and ammonia production facility in Point Tupper, N.S., powered by wind farms.
The company received environmental approval in 2023 for its main facility. A condition of the approval was that construction begin within two years. It has not started, but the Environment Department confirmed it has granted an extension to 2027.
Bear Head has not applied for environmental approval for any wind farms, and it has not made any recent public statements.
In response to questions from CBC News, Bear Head’s parent company, Texas-based Buckeye Partners, said its subsidiary is “not providing project updates at this time.”
Hydrogen market still moving forward, prof says
David Layzell, professor emeritus at the University of Calgary who has studied environmentally friendly energy systems, said the world is going to need green hydrogen in order to decarbonize.
“There’s not a large number of energy systems that are not going to drive pretty serious climate change globally,” he said in an interview.
But, he added, the hydrogen industry has developed more slowly than some people originally anticipated.
“We’ve had some pretty significant changes geopolitically … and there are other priorities, even in Canada, that have moved higher up the list,” said Layzell.
Nevertheless, he said he thinks green hydrogen production in Nova Scotia is viable; it will just take more time to come to fruition.
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