Marine Renewables Canada

Our Mission

Marine Renewables Canada aligns industry, academia and government to ensure that Canada is a leader in providing ocean energy solutions to a world market.

Our Vision

A Canadian sustainable ocean energy sector, serving domestic and export power needs and providing projects, technologies and expertise in a global market.

Marine Renewables Canada Origins

In 2001 BC Hydro pursued the feasibility of wave and tidal energy around Vancouver Island and the BC coast. Resource assessment were completed and early MOUs were signed with international wave energy device developers. A change in Provincial energy policy in 2003 resulted in the cancellation of demonstration project plans.

Industry members continued to meet with government and academic institutions and in 2004 it was decided an organisation should be formed to represent the sector and continue the push for marine energy in BC. The Ocean Renewable Energy Group (OREG) was registered as a non-profit in the summer of 2004, and immediately broadened its focus across Canada to support the marine energy developments in Canada’s rivers, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

In 2012 OREG rebranded as Marine Renewables Canada, and registered the association as a Canadian non-profit society. This change coincided with the movement towards implementation of the Canadian Marine Renewable Energy Technology Roadmap, and signified the growth of the industry. Marine Renewables Canada works endless to aid in the realisation of Canada’s ocean energy resources, technologies, and project capabilities.

Marine Renewable Energy in Canada

Canada has massive marine renewable energy resources and is making significant strides in realizing the potential of this resource. Supportive policies, shared infrastructure, and strategic research initiatives provide a solid foundation, making Canada a leader in the global marine renewable energy industry.

This section provides an overview and toolbox of the most current information, initiatives, players, and policies in Canada’s marine renewable energy sector.

Marine Renewables Technology Roadmap

Canada’s marine renewable energy sector has the potential to become highly competitive in the global marketplace – serving domestic and global power needs. The Roadmap defines the approach that will see projects around the world use Canadian technologies and expertise. The Canadian sector, focused on gaining experience with marine renewable energy solutions and technologies, and on finding ways to accelerate the formation of a supply chain for commercial-scale activity is maintaining this industrial development focus.

There are no ‘small projects’ when operating in the challenging marine environment: development, installation, operation and retrieval involve high costs and high risks. Mitigating these challenges will be critically important to the long-term success of Canada’s marine renewable energy sector. Doing so requires one thing above all else: collaboration.

Nova Scotia’s commercial-scale, shared infrastructure ‘incubator’ initiative in the Bay of Fundy, the Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE), has created a world-leading, grid-connected, demonstration centre. Reducing costs and risk while accelerating the achievement of operational scale, the FORCE approach is clearly working.

Canada has committed more than $75 million in federal and provincial support to marine renewable energy development projects in the last five years; $100 million will be invested in phase 1 of FORCE; installations of technology arrays could see upwards of $500 million invested in the coming five years.

The Renewable Electricity Regulations in Nova Scotia, the Clean Energy Act in British Columbia, and Quebec’s Plan Nord are all helping to move Canada’s marine renewable energy sector towards a scale of interest.

In July 2011, the Government of Nova Scotia announced its plan to create the ‘winning conditions’ for development of an in-stream tidal energy sector that will serve Nova Scotians for generations to come; an industrial strategy, 65 MW by 2015, another 300 MW in 5 to 10 years.

More than 100 experts contributed their ideas through a series of three workshops to produce a national vision and strategy for Canada’s marine renewable energy sector through this Roadmap. This process has demonstrated the growing convictions that marine renewable energy is an inevitable and sustainable addition to the world’s clean energy future.

Join us as we move forward and act decisively to build and maintain ‘Advantage Canada’.