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NEW YORK — The winds on the shallow Scotian Shelf of Atlantic Canada are consistent, says Nova Scotia’s leader, and so is the political will needed to capture and sustain them.
Premier Tim Houston for the second year keynoted an American offshore wind conference, where he called on local and international business executives to look north to invest. It’s another signal that the industry south of the Canadian border remains on ice as a frequent target of the Trump administration.
“We are a predictable and reliable regulatory jurisdiction,” said David MacGregor, associate deputy minister of the Nova Scotia Department of Energy at the conference. “When the regulator picks and chooses and goes through the bid process and they pick the best bids, the federal government cannot overrule them. It takes the province and the feds to overrule the board. That provides remarkable stability.”
MacGregor did not name President Donald Trump in making his point about political differences between the countries, but he didn’t have to. The Trump administration, following a presidential memorandum and numerous secretarial orders that have come from it, has moved to revoke permits previously granted to offshore wind projects, entirely upending a regulatory system that is needed to provide certainty to the projects and lenders putting billions on the line.
Nova Scotia, home to just over 1 million people, is currently gauging the industry’s interest to bid on major tracts of Canadian ocean east of the Gulf of Maine. The bidding hasn’t happened yet.
The proposal, called Wind West, is an ambitious plan that calls for as many as 60 gigawatts of offshore wind energy if fully developed. By 2040, about 15 gigawatts from Wind West could be operational, per Nova Scotia’s recent timeline.
As context, the Biden administration sought to dispatch 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. The U.S. is still far from its goal, with the five projects being built now totalling just under six gigawatts.
Houston, who also serves as his province’s energy minister, has said Nova Scotia only needs a small slice (fewer than three gigawatts). The province will look to send it west to larger population centers, but also export it to markets in the United States, to which Canada has been a major supplier of crude oil and natural gas.
“We’re very focused on building those transmission lines to get away from Nova Scotia to other markets in New England, in other parts of Canada,” he told The Light.
The Light contacted the energy departments of Rhode Island, Connecticut and Maine for comment following Massachusetts’ offshore wind partnership with Nova Scotia, announced this month. The New England governors are part of a longstanding conference with Canadian leadership that promotes cooperation and regional projects.
“We’re closely tracking the development of clean energy resources in Canada and considering how offshore wind development and other regional efforts more broadly may deliver reliable, affordable power, modern infrastructure, and broad economic benefits for Maine,” said Dan Burgess, acting commissioner of the Maine Department of Energy Resources, in an email.
He did not say whether the state is looking to enter into a memorandum of understanding as well.
James Fowler, spokesperson for the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection, in an email said the state was “interested to see this cooperation expand through the Massachusetts–Nova Scotia partnership” and looks forward to “learning more as it progresses.”
A spokesperson for the Rhode Island energy office said the agency had no comment.
Building transmission
A cross-border transmission for energy isn’t new. Massachusetts just launched one last month for hydropower from Canada. However, it’s a challenge sorting out who pays and who benefits, and making sure both are proportionate, said Abby Watson, co-founder and president of Groundwire Group, a consulting firm that focuses on climate and sustainability.
A few years ago, Watson coordinated a project, the New England-Maritimes Offshore Energy Corridor, or NEMOEC, which contemplated a major transmission corridor for offshore wind energy between the United States and Atlantic Canada. (Maritimes is the easternmost region of Canada covering three provinces, including Nova Scotia.)
The undertaking involved a coalition of North American energy companies and culminated in a report that considered feasibility and how it could benefit both regions. The estimated price tag then: $6 billion to $8 billion.
“The market fundamentals that led us to look at that opportunity back in 2022 is the same now. If anything, it’s maybe more acute on New England’s side,” Watson said.
ISO New England, the regional grid operator, projects net electricity use will grow by nearly 2% annually through 2034. Offshore wind was set to supply a significant chunk through four projects off the Rhode Island and Massachusetts coasts.
Two are nearly finished, but the other two are stalled and face existential threats from the federal government.
“I think it’s absolutely driving some of that urgency,” Watson said of the headwinds the industry is facing and the proposal to import wind energy from Canada. “I think regardless of if this were happening or not on our side of the border, New England needs that energy.”
Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources Commissioner Elizabeth Mahony in an interview said the state always assumed it would have to pull from multiple energy sites to reach its offshore wind procurement goals.
She said diversifying offshore wind sources could be beneficial, as variable wind speeds and storms along the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf could mean Nova Scotian wind farms can supply more energy if Massachusetts wind farms are producing less at a given time.
As for where the transmission lines would go, Watson said some would prefer to route them by land, and others by sea (technically, subsea). The former would require more approvals from all municipalities through which the transmission weaves.
Either way, it would require the ultimate form of federal approval: a permit from the president of the United States.
If the idea comes to fruition, the planning, permitting and building of the infrastructure will take several years, by which time Trump will be out of office.
Nova Scotia’s MacGregor said the region doesn’t have a power generation problem, but a transmission problem.
“We should eliminate the border mentally because from a power generation standpoint, we’re actually one region,” he said. “We just need to do the work and this MOU between Nova Scotia and Massachusetts is only the beginning.”
Timeline
Several years of planning and permitting stand in the way before Nova Scotia can install its first offshore turbine, and then more time to construct before it receives the first electrons. Houston is confident his government can maintain the political and regulatory backing to see it through.
“The political will to develop these is across the political spectrum… people want it, people are pushing it,” Houston told The Light.
But as with most major industrial projects, there are pockets of opposition or concern. Like Massachusetts, Nova Scotia is a coastal community with a fishing industry that plies the same waters proposed to host major steel structures and buried cables.
Some members of the fishing community have started voicing those concerns and are asking the government to slow down, a request commonly made by fishermen in the United States.
That may be another area where Massachusetts, as an MOU partner, offers lessons learned and ways in which it has worked with the fishing industry, compensation programs being one example.
Beyond information, state officials have expressed their hope that Canada utilizes the port infrastructure in which the state has so heavily invested — investments that are at risk of being stranded, per court filings.
“I want to make sure that we are highlighting what Massachusetts brings to the table,” Mahony said, noting it’s not just ideas, but its workforce and land. Further, acknowledging the state faces a challenging few years ahead amid federal permitting uncertainty for offshore wind, she said the state doesn’t want to lose the momentum it has built.
“We’ve got a port,” she said, referencing the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal. “We definitely want to utilize our investments, infrastructure and our people to build these projects here and up north.”
Lisa Engler, deputy managing director for offshore wind at Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, on a panel Thursday noted MassCEC’s significant port investments and said they want to leverage it such that it is used by both Massachusetts and Canada. The agency is currently expanding the New Bedford terminal.
Houston, when asked by The Light about using Massachusetts port infrastructure to build out the province’s projects, did not make any explicit promises.
“It’s a two-way relationship. I think right now Nova Scotia is going to push hard on developing our wind. There’s challenges in the United States, but I think in the fullness of time, that whole Eastern Seaboard will work together, sharing supply chains, resources, people,” he said.
“We’re gonna need all hands on deck… All of these assets are going to be important.”
Email Anastasia E. Lennon at alennon@newbedfordlight.org.
As of today, the US government (Trump administration) will fight the federal court’s 5 decisions to grant preliminary injunctions in cases challenging the stop-work orders for offshore wind projects under construction, issued in December.
Isn’t this remarkable! A polar opposite opinion to what’s going on in the good ol’ USA! Doesn’t Canada have a “fishing industry”? Why is there cooperation in Canada and not here? We share the same oceans.
Gov Healey and MA leadership: conserve precious resources.
Not another electron for AI, data surveillance, and cryptocurrency data centres that were granted MA tax exemption in 2024.
Servers gobble grid energy, guzzle potable water for cooling massive data processing, spike energy prices for all, to produce more garbagy output, replace human endeavour, and eliminate jobs.
They don’t tell you that by the time the power gets to our grid allot is lost. Plus the amount of energy that goes to our grid is about 3% and in the final stages will.be 5%, and at a ridiculous cost for delivery charges to the consumer. There are special Interest people that have their own agenda and it doesn’t include the consumer. SHAMEFUL