Healey administration looks to Nova Scotia for offshore wind energy

New England states team up with Canadian province to solicit input about nascent industry

Frustrated by resistance in Washington to offshore wind projects in the United States, the Healey administration is stepping up its efforts to work with Canada instead, with a focus on the relatively shallow waters and powerful sea breezes off Nova Scotia’s coast.

On Thursday, Governor Maura Healey and Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston announced a formal effort to gather information about the potential for wind generation resources in the ocean off the Maritime provinces and for the delivery of that power to New England’s grid.

The Healey administration, with energy secretary Rebecca Tepper as the point person, is taking the lead on behalf of New England. Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Maine are also participating in the issuance of what is known as a “request for information.”

The announcement was made by Tepper and Houston at the New England-Canada Business Council’s annual energy conference at the Seaport Hotel on Thursday.

“In the face of deeply misguided federal opposition to offshore wind, Massachusetts has held strong,” Tepper said at the conference. “We know that the offshore wind industry will bounce back. The opportunity is too big. The need for affordable clean electricity is too great. And that’s why our partnership with Nova Scotia is so important.”

The news follows Canadian energy minister Tim Hodgson’s commitment last month to spending 100 million Canadian dollars to advance offshore wind development in Nova Scotia. In particular, the money is aimed at landing private-sector investments to help bring the province’s ambitious “Wind West” initiative to build multiple wind farms. For example, CA$5 million will go toward deploying buoys to collect data on wind speeds and ocean conditions, to help prepare for Canada’s first round of offshore wind power bids.

It also follows the completion in recent weeks of New England’s first two commercial-scale offshore wind farms, in the federal waters south of Martha’s Vineyard: Revolution Wind (to serve Rhode Island and Connecticut ratepayers) and Vineyard Wind (for Massachusetts). Those wind farms, which combined can provide enough power for nearly 800,000 homes, were well underway before a hostile Trump administration took charge in 2025. Newer projects have been stymied by the federal government’s reluctance to issue permits.

This partnership between Nova Scotia and Massachusetts has been in the works for more than a year, starting with a trip Tepper took to Nova Scotia in September 2025 to meet with officials there. In the new Nova Scotia-Massachusetts callout to the industry, the governments note that increased electricity demand and decarbonization mandates are driving the need for more generation capacity in New England, particularly in winter peak periods.

The main goals of the new collaboration: to gauge industry interest in developing offshore wind farms off Nova Scotia and to determine the commercially viable options for delivering that electricity into New England. Some of the questions that the government officials are asking of industry players revolve around timing, permitting, and industrial port capacity. Respondents are also being asked about the pros and cons of delivering power to New England via a new undersea transmission line versus over land through New Brunswick and Quebec.

In some ways, the effort is reminiscent of another major transmission project through Maine called New England Clean Energy Connect, which was completed last winter after years of delays, to bring more hydropower from Quebec into New England on behalf of Massachusetts. But in this case, the Healey administration is trying to prod the creation of a new energy resource in Canada by helping stimulate industry interest in building wind turbines off the coast of Nova Scotia.