SDTC Looking for Canada’s Next Cleantech Innovators

Ottawa, August 27, 2014 – Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC)  is looking for the next wave of innovative cleantech entrepreneurs.  The SD Tech Fund™ and the SD Natural Gas Fund™  are open for applications from August 27 to October 15, 2014.

“Cleantech ensures the economic viability and environmental responsibility of Canada’s major sectors, including natural resources and manufacturing. This creates jobs, revenues and export possibilities for Canadian companies. These funds are key to supporting cleantech innovations, launching them onto the world stage where Canada can participate in the burgeoning cleantech market, valued at more than $1 trillion today,” said Jane E. Pagel, Acting President and CEO of SDTC

Through the SD Tech Fund™, SDTC supports technologies that address the challenges of Clean Air, Soil, Water and Climate Change, including technology solutions focused on these current technology priority areas:

• Responsible resource development: Mitigate environmental impacts associated with Canada’s natural resource sector through technologies in the oil and gas, mining, and forestry sectors.
• Next generation transportation: Technologies related to next generation vehicles having reduced emissions and higher energy efficiency, with a focus on freight transportation.
• Resource and energy efficiency: Technologies that encourage energy efficiency in buildings and industrial processes, with a focus on industrial water use efficiency.
• Clean energy: Technologies that enable clean energy production, distributed power generation and energy storage as well as technologies related to carbon capture and storage, integrated energy systems, and biorefinery/biochemical production.
• Agriculture: Technologies that increase yield and improve temperature and drought resistance of agricultural crops, mitigate land-use changes and biodiversity loss and diversify farm incomes
• Northern and remote communities: Innovative technologies and solutions for self-sufficiency in smaller communities, such as food security, heavy-lift transportation, small-scale renewable energy and microgrid applications.

The SD Natural Gas Fund™, a collaboration with the Canadian Gas Association, focuses on the following priority areas.

• Residential (small-scale affordable CHP units, ultra-efficient water heaters, technologies that improve the efficiency of residential heating and/or cooling)
• Commercial (technologies that improve the efficiency of heating systems, measurement and data management to better control natural gas consumption, natural gas cooling systems)
• Industrial (higher-efficiency industrial heating equipment, CO2 capture systems, less energy-intensive hydrogen production)
• Power generation (higher efficiency power generation, emissions control technologies, natural gas storage solutions for remote locations)
• Transportation (more efficient and lower emission natural gas engines, alternative natural gas engines, lower-cost solutions)Renewable natural gas (technologies that improve cleanup economics, cost-effective small-scale anaerobic digesters)

Quick facts

• On behalf of the Government of Canada, SDTC helps commercialize Canadian clean technologies, readying them for growth and export markets.
• Through its SD Tech Fund™, SDTC helps companies through the critical juncture when capital and scaling costs become challenges and the risk profile deters other investors.
• The SDTC portfolio is currently comprised of 246 clean technology projects with a total value of $2.2 billion, of which over $1.6 billion is leveraged primarily from the private-sector.
• The SD Natural Gas Fund brings together contributions from Canadian Gas Association members through their Energy Technology Innovation Canada Initiative to match contributions from SDTC’s SD Tech Fund™, up to a combined total of $30 million over three years.
• With a portfolio of companies under management valued at more than $2 billion, SDTC is positioning cleantech as a driver of jobs, productivity and economic prosperity.
  

  ---