Green Hydrogen & Northland GUYSBOROUGH, Nova Scotia – The deadline for companies vying for Crown land in the Strait area for the purpose of developing wind and hydrogen projects to make their case for access was Oct. 20.
Department of Natural Resources and Renewables spokesperson Patricia Jreige told The Journal in an email Oct. 24, “Several developers would like to put wind turbines on the same or overlapping parcels of Crown lands in Eastern Nova Scotia. We worked on a process with hydrogen developers that submitted overlapping requests for Crown lands, which was a Request for Application (RFA) process. The RFA allows the Department to collect additional and consistent information from these developers to better understand what projects are best positioned to advance.”
Jreige went on to clarify the next steps in the process: “The Request for Application (RFA) process does not give access to Crown land. It simply resolves the issue of overlapping requests which we discussed with the developers over the summer. We can then decide which developer will be able to apply for Crown land access in a particular area. Our target is to have a decision in a few weeks. The developer can then go through the usual process to apply for access.”
Municipality of the District of Guysborough’s (MODG’s) Director of Economic Development Gordon MacDonald told The Journal that four companies have submitted applications: EverWind Fuels, Fortescue Future Industries, Northland Power and Bear Head Energy.
“Green hydrogen is a great opportunity for Nova Scotia to help fight climate change and grow our green economy. We’re pleased to have many companies interested in setting up shop here." Patricia Jreige.
Lois Ann Dort, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Guysborough Journal