Canada’s Bay of Fundy lies in Nova Scotia’s Minas Passage. The region is notorious for producing the world’s highest tides. More than 100 billion tons of water are moved twice every day.
Using this tidal energy to generate clean power has been proposed many times, but the process always stalls because of concerns about marine life.
Regulators want to approve multi-turbine projects in stages rather than entire arrays upfront. What environmental feedback do they need to see first?
How authorization must be staged under rules for marine protection
Fisheries and Oceans Canada is trying to restart development with a permitting system to hopefully lead to commercial arrays.
It has now issued its first approval for the first Fisheries Act, which has been formulated under revised monitoring guidelines. This approval went to Eauclaire Tidal for the Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy site.
The permit covers the eventual installation of up to three floating Orbital O2-X platforms with a combined capacity of approximately 7.5 megawatts, distinct from the developer’s broader 16.5-megawatt multi-berth portfolio.
For now, the clearance only allows one platform to be installed. It has twin horizontal rotors of 65 feet.
The framework operates step by step and addresses previous Minas Passage industry setbacks. Developers decided to withdraw their projects when they were faced with environmental risks that were not quantified and rules that seemed unrealistically rigid.
The expansion of the site is now linked to operational milestones. Regulators hope that this is a practical path forward for tidal power. But they also want marine life to be protected.
The first device has to operate in currents exceeding 10 miles per hour. It also has to deliver continuous, real-time data about biological interactions with the equipment.
When this can be proven, then permission may be granted for one or two additional devices to form an array.
Integrating sensors into high-energy marine corridors
Researchers had to install specialized sensor arrays designed to function in dark and choppy waters to track the first turbine.
This had the backing of CAD $8.2 million (USD $6 million) from Natural Resources Canada. Called the Ocean Sensor Innovation Platforms project, it joins autonomous craft with frames on the seabed of the Minas Passage.
These custom monitoring rigs combine high-frequency imaging sonar, underwater cameras, and acoustic receiver arrays connected to the Ocean Tracking Network.
Subsea cameras use automated lighting and standardized calibration targets to preserve visual clarity in murky water.
Simultaneously, acoustic hydrophones detect signals from tagged migratory fish, including striped bass, alewife, and Atlantic salmon. AI-driven software processes incoming sonar feeds to distinguish fish paths from floating debris and bubble noise.
This technology stack monitors fine-scale animal movements within 328 feet of the active rotors, recording whether species alter their swimming trajectories near spinning blades.
Empirical threshold triggers for array expansion
The fish “decide” whether the array expands through empirical interaction metrics recorded by seabed sensors during the single-turbine test phase.
Regulators convert acoustic telemetry and imaging sonar feeds into statistically robust encounter-rate models and automated tracking datasets.
The Force’s Environmental Effects Monitoring Program Annual Report 2025 says that monitoring focuses on key species navigating Minas Passage, including striped bass, alewife, and Atlantic salmon.
If fish consistently show micro-avoidance behaviors—adjusting their swimming depth or direction to bypass the active rotors without entering collision paths—the calculated risk stays below legal limits.
The aim is negligible strike rates and clear channels
Demonstrating negligible strike rates and unimpeded channel passage will contribute to Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s decision on the permit to deploy the second and third Orbital O2-X devices.
Fish-monitoring data inform DFO’s staged regulatory decisions, giving the regulator adaptive discretion under Fisheries Act authorizations to evaluate array expansion or require project adjustments based on observed impacts, according to the Government of Canada.
Replacing theoretical hydrodynamic modeling with direct observational data from the sea floor removes subjective guesswork from permitting decisions.
The staged regulatory model proves that scaling marine energy infrastructure in extreme tidal environments depends entirely on demonstrating that subsea rotating hardware maintains a neutral impact on wild fish populations.
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