Last week, the Government of Canada announced $28.9 million CAD for 12 projects aimed at accelerating the development and deployment of clean energy tech across the country.
This funding, which comes through the Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) Energy Innovation Program, included three investments totalling more than $16 million in Prairies-based carbon capture and storage (CCS) and renewable energy research initiatives.
“Canada is scaling up clean energy while strengthening our electricity grid and responsibly growing our conventional energy industry—because competitiveness means doing more than one thing at the same time,” Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Tim Hodgson said in a release.
These projects are being led by Calgary’s Carbon Alpha, the Regina-based Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC), and Alberta’s Red Deer Polytechnic.
Calgary’s Carbon Alpha, Regina’s Petroleum Technology Research Centre, and Red Deer Polytechnic are receiving NRCan funding for CCS and renewable energy research.
CCS developer Carbon Alpha, which was acquired by Burnaby, BC cleantech firm Svante Technologies earlier this year, is receiving $10 million from NRCan. The company is using this money to help fund a Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan project testing a new way to design seismic surveys for CCS measurement, monitoring, and verification.
By combining two- and three-dimensional seismic data, Carbon Alpha hopes to minimize the need for multiple 3D repeat surveys and lower environmental impact and costs through the more than $22-million project.
The federal government is also investing nearly $4.92 million to aid PTRC efforts to analyze how carbon dioxide (CO₂) plumes move and change in underground rock formations.
That funding will help finance the drilling of a new test well and collecting samples and monitoring data.
The PTRC hopes this work will improve understanding of CO₂ plume behaviour in deep saline rock formations, and play a role in lowering the environmental, financial, and technical risks of geological CO₂ storage projects.
RELATED: Svante buys Alberta’s Carbon Alpha Corp.
Meanwhile, Red Deer Polytechnic (RDP) is receiving approximately $1.25 million in NRCan to demonstrate how 125-kilowatt solar panels and crops can share the same land, even in cold weather. The postsecondary institution intends to analyze this data using AI to help landowners, utility providers, small businesses, and governments alike make better decisions about how to leverage solar power on farmland.
Tonya Wolfe, associate vice president of applied research at RDP, said in a release that the project will address the dual challenge of pairing clean energy with food security. “The site will not only validate the balance between energy generation and food production but also support commercialization of technologies.”
Alongside partners NSERC, CBI Solar, and Sun Cycle Farms, Red Deer Polytechnic aims to de-risk its tech and provide evidence that solar energy and agriculture can sustainably coexist to inform regulations that currently limit solar development on prime farmland via the nearly $2.5-million initiative.
Feature image courtesy Carbon Alpha.