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SYDNEY, N.S. — Offshore wind energy takes centre stage as the hot topic for this year’s Port Days, marking the conference’s return to the Port of Sydney after a three-year absence.
Port Days welcomes industry stakeholders from across the Atlantic region and the country to listen to presentations and take part in question-and-answer sessions on various aspects of port development in Sydney harbour.
In light of an offshore wind marshalling port slated to be built in Edwardsville in the coming years, Port Days is featuring presentations from the group spearheading that project, Novaporte, a representative from Blue Water Shipping (the Denmark-based firm Novaporte partnered with for the project), along with an energy panel, talks with two ports associations and remarks on the state of the marine industry.
“We’re calling our theme ‘A Better Tomorrow,’ but it’s really focused on energy, transportation and clean energy. The Novaporte project is the impetus for the whole theme,” Port of Sydney CEO Marlene Usher said during Wednesday night’s welcome reception at the Joan Harriss Cruise Pavilion, where roughly 75 delegates gathered and chatted.
Two months ago, Novaporte — a transportation, logistics and green energy development group in Cape Breton — announced it plans to work on a project to bring an offshore wind marshalling port to be constructed on land near Sydport, near the area where Novaporte plotted out its container terminal vision.
‘Detailed design work’
“We’re into detailed design work right now, basically to focus on the (target of) five gigawatts that the premier had announced (last September),” said Novaporte CEO Albert Barbusci, referring to the Houston government’s intention to offer leases for the production of five gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030. “Supporting his vision is the key for us.”
In learning about how the offshore wind industry operates, thanks to a connection with Blue Water Shipping, Barbusci believes the industry could be the fastest-growing sector of maritime shipping and potentially double in size within the next 10 years.
“Wind is a $1-trillion industry,” he said back in March during a presentation in Membertou. “That’s why we’re launching with marshalling.”
He added Wednesday night, “With the feds supporting green energy, it’s very strategic for many reasons. But as we’ve been saying in the past, these surprises come from the flank, and they’re unexpected — but they’re usually the greatest opportunities.”
Supporting Barbusci’s statement, Federal Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson on Tuesday introduced proposed amendments to the Atlantic Accord, which would expand the mandates of the offshore energy regulators in both Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, setting the legislative framework for offshore renewable energy.
Ideal fit
Brian Sørensen, Blue Water Shipping’s global category head for wind and port service, said that Cape Breton could serve as an ideal fit for an offshore wind energy hub.
“The location and the size of the area just fit perfectly,” he said. “What we know from Europe, the industry demands from winds are really growing. So we see great opportunities … to try and bring what we created in Europe to over here.
“North America was interesting for us some years ago. We have all the projects in the U.S. so far. It’s only seven turbines, but all seven were done by us and also the terminal work in Esbjerg, Denmark (Blue Water Shipping’s headquarters) and one in Long Island, N.Y. With Canada coming out with five-gigawatt pipeline, I’m sure that will grow bigger in the near future.”
The drive to set up a wind marshalling port — which would be used to collect and store wind turbine components prior to loading them on to wind turbine installation vessels — was further spurred when several Cape Breton municipal and business leaders attended a wind energy conference in Copenhagen last month.
First-hand view
For Kathleen Yurchesyn, Novaporte’s vice-president of operations and corporate development, attendance at the WindEurope conference afforded her a way to view first-hand how the wind energy industry has grown.
“We had the chance to visit the Port of Esjberg (three hours west of Copenhagen) to see the magnitude of what this opportunity would look like, and what we could bring here in terms of jobs and economic development, and ultimately how we can develop that port site into something that will transform this entire island,” said Yurchesyn.
Wind energy topics, however, aren’t expected to take up the entire conference on Thursday. A state of the maritime industry address is also on tap, along with a port address from Usher — marking her final bow as she readies for retirement as port CEO.
‘Lot of infrastructure projects’
“There’s still a lot of infrastructure projects right on site with respect to growing the tourism industry,” she said. “We have 215 ships and we need infrastructure to support that. We need to repair the south dock.
“But more importantly, we need to offer services for the ships. We know that there are thousands of the ships in the offshore, very close to our region. And we want to be a place that’s top of mind for those ships to come in (to our port).”
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