B.C. climate tech gets $7.7M boost

TECH

B.C. CICE invests $7.7M to commercialize climate solutions

What happened: The B.C. Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy (CICE) announced $7.7 million for 13 early-stage climate tech companies. 

The non-dilutive funding is split between the winners of CICE’s Wildfire Tech and July Open Call for Innovation, and targets companies at the critical early stages of commercialization. Some of the funding recipients include:

• FireSwarm Solutions is developing autonomous fire suppression drones to detect, map, and battle fires.

• CRWN.ai is using frequency and AI to detect high fire risk defects on transmission lines

• NESI and Ionomr are converting waste from traditional lithium refining into valuable chemicals

• AlgaFilm Technologies is using algae to treat wastewater and produce renewable biofuels

• Edison Motors is developing the world’s first electric tri-blade snowplow

These investments address the growing threat of wildfires, a problem that impacts B.C. particularly hard. Wildfires are becoming more common because of climate change, costs are rising, and yet just a fraction of climate tech funding goes toward adaptation efforts like wildfire response. 

Meanwhile, the clean energy projects are aiming to help B.C. transition to a low carbon economy, meet the province’s growing energy demands, and create economic prosperity. 

Why it matters: Crossing the gap from promising technology to commercial success is a longstanding challenge for Canadian tech companies, particularly in the climate and cleantech space. CICE is aiming to close this gap with funding for startups at Technology Readiness Level 4 to 9 and with significant potential to reduce emissions and scale.

What’s next: The latest group of projects backed by CICE are valued at more than $21.5 million and will be deployed over the coming months. CICE also announced a new $3 million Call for Energy Storage Innovation in partnership with BC Hydro. 

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CLIMATE CAPITAL

💨 Carbon Engineering (Squamish, BC) received $5 million from Natural Resources Canada to develop alternative energy solutions for powering direct air carbon capture (DAC) and improve DAC’s land use and energy efficiency.

• Five other projects received funding, including Arca Climate Technologies (Vancouver, BC) and British Columbia Biocarbon (McBride, BC) to develop carbon capture via mineralization and converting municipal waste into biocoal, respectively.

⛏️ Ideon Technologies (Richmond, BC) received $300K from InnovateBC to develop cosmic-ray muon tomography that can map and model critical mineral deposits. 

🚰 Viridis Research (Vancouver, BC) also received $300K from Innovate BC to develop water treatments for dyes, toxic chemicals and microplastics from textile wastewater. 

☀️ SolarBank’s (Toronto, ON) battery energy storage subsidiary secured $3 million in project financing to develop a 4.99 MW storage system in Ontario. It’s SolarBank’s first foray into the battery storage space.

MILESTONES & PRODUCT

🚀 MaRS announced the new ventures joining its Better Buildings Adoption Accelerator, including Tiny Kits (modular net-zero home kits), Intelligent City (vertically integrated housing platform) and Adaptis (building performance and whole-life carbon platform).

💨 Eocycle partnered with energy solutions company EnerForge to bring their distributed wind energy resources to market in Canada. Eocycle develops wind turbines that can be deployed behind the meter, allowing commercial and industrial customers to reduce energy costs by supplying their own wind energy.

🚙 Exro Technologies is facing a proposed lawsuit from shareholders who claim the company misrepresented revenue projections related to an acquisition of SEA Electric earlier this year. Exro develops intelligent motor controls for EVs.

🚌 Lion Electric temporarily laid off another 300 workers and extended working financing until later this month while it continues to explore financing options or a sale. 

NEWS

Alberta hits back on oil & gas emissions cap

What happened: The Alberta government announced more plans to push back on Canada’s oil & gas emissions cap. Under Alberta’s sovereignty act, the province is threatening to:

• Take ownership of private corporate data on greenhouse gas emissions that companies are legally required to provide to the feds

• Barring entry by federal officials to energy facilities

• Prevent provincial entities from helping the feds implement or enforce the cap

Premier Danielle Smith also speculated about selling and marketing oil and gas directly for companies and “de-risking” further pipeline development.

What's the context: The proposed oil & gas emissions cap aims to reduce emissions in the sector by 35% below 2019 levels by 2030. It currently contributes 31% of Canada’s emissions. While opponents claim the emissions cap is a de facto cap on production, federal modelling suggests production could still continue to grow under the cap.

Fighting federal environmental rules is nothing new for Alberta - the province has sued the feds several times (including a second lawsuit around impact assessments filed last week). But these new measures create new legal risk and uncertainty for oil companies - particularly for companies that need to disclose data to securities regulators - and are likely unconstitutional.

Why it matters: Despite Alberta’s aggressive stance, the actual pollution cuts aren’t as outlandish as they’re made to seem. The Pembina Institute noted that Alberta could meet these requirements simply by following through on its own Emissions Reduction and Energy Development Plan from 2023.

Stopping methane leaks alone could make a significant impact. Methane makes up 13% of Canada’s emissions, 40% of which is from the oil and gas sector. 

The bottom line: It’s another constitutional fight and more uncertainty for energy companies instead of delivering straightforward solutions that the province's own climate plan says are achievable.

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IN THE NEWS

⛔️ Vancouver reaffirms ban on gas heating in new homes. Opponents claimed that removing the ban would help with housing affordability and speed up construction, but city staff said neither would make a material difference. Meanwhile gas heating contributes 57% of Vancouver’s emissions.

🪨 Ontario wants to open up geologic carbon storage. The proposed bill would regulate commercial-scale carbon storage and enable more carbon storage projects in the province. However, capacity is limited - just 730 megatonnes in Ontario vs Saskatchewan’s 290,000 megatonnes. 

🚚 Quebec will require truck makers to sell more zero-emission heavy-duty vehicles. The legislation would use a credit system to require manufacturers to sell an increasing number of ZEVs. The system is missing some carrots to go with the stick - the province recently paused its rebate program for heavy-duty vehicles in September due to budget constraints.

⛏️ Alberta invests $50M for Drilling Accelerator. The program was announced earlier this year and aims to be an open-access site for industry to test drilling technologies. The funding comes from Alberta’s industrial carbon pricing system and is billed as a test bed for geothermal, critical minerals mining, but has also attracted interest from oil and gas companies.

BIG PICTURE

BYD launches a new sodium-ion grid-scale battery storage product 

Rivian secured a $6.6B loan for its Georgia EV plant

We don’t know as much about climate change as we think - "hot spots" are far outpacing global temperature trends

Oil producers block negotiations on a plastics treaty yet again 

The world’s biggest climate case begins at the International Court of Justice

The UK and Australia are trying to figure out a unique problem - too much wind and solar energy

Barbados landed the first debt swap for climate resilience

COMMUNITY

🚀 Call for Energy Storage Innovation: B.C. CICE and BC Hydro are partnering to offer $3M in non-dilutive funding and access to testing and validation within BC Hydro’s infrastructure to commercialize and scale up energy innovations. Apply by February 28th

🗓️ Invest Together in Climate Innovation Finale: See pitches from the Top 5 climate tech startups from Spring’s 2024 Invest Together in Climate Innovation. The top company will land a $100K investment.

Quick note: I’m participating in this program on the investor side and highly recommend checking out the pitches!

➡️ Discover more climate events.

💻️ Friendlier is hiring Customer Success Managers in Ontario to scale their circular packaging platform.

➡️ Find more open roles.