Nova Scotia's bid to become a North American leader in the development, supply and support of tidal energy projects took another step forward in February 2011 with the announcement that an international consortium led by Atlantis Resources Corporation will test one of the world's largest tidal turbines in the Bay of Fundy's aggressive marine environment.

Atlantis Resources Corporation, a world-leading tidal technology and project development company, was one of five respondents to a request for proposal issued by the province last fall for a fourth berth-holder to participate in its Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE) project.

The company will work in partnership with Lockheed Martin and Irving Shipbuilding to customize, build, deploy and monitor their one megawatt AK-1000 Mark II turbine at FORCE's Minas Passage test site.

"I am thrilled to welcome Atlantis, Lockheed Martin and Irving Shipbuilding to the FORCE project team," said Premier Darrell Dexter. "Together, we are working to harness some of the most powerful tides in the world to produce safe, clean, renewable energy for Nova Scotia and through that process develop the expertise, experience and infrastructure to be a resource for tidal energy projects across North America."

Lockheed Martin, which has 130 full time employees in Nova Scotia, will be responsible for engineering design elements, production drawings and procurement of major turbine components along with systems testing.

Irving Shipbuilding, with more than 1200 shipyard workers in the province, will oversee construction of the turbine base and assembly of the device in conjunction with other local suppliers.

Atlantis joins three existing berth-holders in the FORCE project: Nova Scotia Power, in partnership with Open Hydro of Ireland; Minas Basin Pulp and Power, working with Marine Current Turbines technology; and Alstom of France using their Clean Current technology.

"Lockheed Martin has designed and deployed maritime systems for more than 40 years," said Tom Digan, president of Lockheed Martin Canada "We will apply our systems engineering, integration and manufacturing expertise to help make tidal energy generation an economically viable reality."

FORCE is scheduled to install four subsea transmission cables to connect the test turbines to the electrical grid in the summer, giving Nova Scotia the largest in-stream tidal power capacity in the world.

The provincial government passed regulations last fall that will encourage the development of commercial, transmission-connected tidal arrays through the establishment of a feed-in tariff or guaranteed price, for electricity sold to the Nova Scotia grid.