Over the last decade, Nova Scotia has made significant investments to examine the feasibility of obtaining renewable energy from its tidal waters. The incentives for this investment are:

• to reduce the Province's dependence on fossil fuel, especially coal, for generation of electricity, and achieve the objective for 40% from renewable sources by 2020;
• to enhance Nova Scotia's energy security and stabilize electricity prices;
• the appearance of new technologies for converting tidal energy into electricity; and
• the opportunity to become a significant provider of knowledge and technology to the global marine renewable energy market.

Nova Scotia's assets in this endeavor include the highest tides in the world in the Bay of Fundy, a century of experience in the tidal power considerations, and an innovative, knowledge-based community focussed on the marine environment.

This review examines what has been achieved since 2007, when Nova Scotia initiated a Stategic Environmental Assessment of tidal energy from the Bay of Fundy, and a test and demonstration facility for commercial-scale tidal stream energy converter devices in Minas Passage.