New Federal Investments to Support Energy Innovation Projects

GLOBE-Net, May 6, 2013 – The federal government announced support for 55 innovative new projects aimed at producing and using energy in a cleaner, more efficient way.

The support, totaling more than $82 million, is being provided through the Government’s ecoENERGY Innovation Initiative introduced in Budget 2011 and administered by Natural Resources Canada.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the announcement in Quebec City last week where he met with representatives of several of the companies receiving funding, including CO2 Solutions and AddÉnergie Technologies, both based in Quebec City.

CO2 Solutions is receiving $4.7 million in funding to support the research and development of an innovative method to more efficiently capture carbon dioxide in the oil sands, and AddÉnergie is receiving $3.3 million in support for the development of its electrical vehicle charging infrastructure.

“Our Government is positioning Canada as a global leader in the clean energy sector by supporting innovative projects across the country aimed at producing and using energy in a cleaner and more efficient way,” said the Prime Minister. “The research and development generated by the projects being announced today will also maintain and create jobs, while benefitting the environment.”

[stextbox id=”custom” float=”true” width=”200″ bcolor=”add3d5″ bgcolor=”add3d5″ image=”null”]Of the 55 projects being supported, 15 will be pre-commercialization demonstration projects to test the feasibility of various technologies, and 40 will be research and development projects to address knowledge gaps and bring technologies from the conceptual stage to the ready-to-be-tested stage of development.[/stextbox]

The projects will be undertaken in seven provinces and two territories and will focus on research in the following areas: energy efficiency; clean electricity and renewables; bioenergy; electrification of transportation; and, unconventional oil and gas.

Demonstration Projects 

In addition to the AddÉnergie Technologies Inc. demonstration project for a Management System for Electrical Vehicle Charging Station Networks, Enerkem Inc  will receive $2.9 million to test a system for Modular Compact Combined Heat and Power (CHP) using local heterogeneous biomass wastes, that could be used in remote and rural applications, such as northern communities, industries, and mine operations where it could replace the cost of shipping diesel fuel.

Lafarge Canada Inc. will receive $2,6 million to demonstrate the viability of lower carbon fuels as a partial replacement (up to 10 percent) for the pulverized coal/petroleum coke mix currently used at Lafarge’s plant in Bath, Ontario. (See GLOBE-net article “Building Lower Carbon Cities – Lafarge Takes Action“.

Opus One Solutions Energy Corp. of Toronto will receive $5.3 million to develop a smart grid software/hardware platform to manage electricity generation, storage and resource demand at the distribution level, and to demonstrate this solution on the Toronto Hydro distribution grid.

Owens Corning Canada LP will receive $1.9 million to demonstrate the feasibility of building Net-Zero Energy Housing (NZEH) Communities in Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario and Alberta. The idea behind a Net-Zero Energy home is that it produces at least as much energy as it consumes on an annual basis. The project will also help address the challenges in building to NZEH performance levels specific to production housing and to act as a platform for the broader adoption of NZEH acrossCanada.

DEEP Earth Energy Production Corp of Saskatoon will receive $1.0 million to study the geothermal potential of a site in the Williston Basin in Southeast Saskatchewan. The full project would see the further development of the technologies required for low temperature geothermal power production.

Nexterra Systems Corp. of Vancouver will receive $3.2 million to develop technology to divert a small side-stream of the syngas from a wood waste gasifier and further process it to produce a 99 percent pure hydrogen gas that is suitable for injection into a natural gas pipeline.

Prolucid Technologies Inc. of Mississauga, will receive funding in the order of $1.5 million to demonstrate new grid technologies that will enable the effective introduction and management of new renewable energy sources – such as solar, wind, and combined heat and power generation – onto the electricity grid.

Other demonstration projects include a Yukon Energy Corporation Bioenergy Demonstration Project in Whitehorse; a project to demonstrate Smart Grid technologies in a Northern environment in Iqaluit, Nunavut; a Community Energy Project in FortWare,Northern British Columbia; aWater Wall Turbine in Lions Bay, British Columbia; a Tidal Power Generation Project also in B.C.; a Wind Hybrid Power Plant by Nimschu Iskudow Inc. in Northern Quebec; a Micro-Grid and Smart-Grid Pilot Demonstration project in Nunavut; and a hydro turbine plant at Wasdell Falls, Ontario.

The ‘Renewables and the Changing Energy Landscape’ will be a major topic at GLOBE 2014, the next in the celebrated GLOBE Series Conferences on the business of the environment taking place in Vancouver Canada, March 26-28, 2014. Reserve your place now. Check here for more details.