CTC #71 - Energy sector overhaul

Plus- Assembly snags funding for modular mass timer, CarbiCrete gets a new CEO, and LaFarge switches plant to low-carbon cement

Feb 28, 2024

Hey there,

Welcome to another issue of Climate Tech Canada! If you’re in Ottawa this Thursday, February 29th, we’re hosting another Climate Exchange meetup on climate resilient cities. More info & RSVP here!

This week in climate tech:

Assembly bags $1.25M to accelerate low-carbon housing
Nova Scotia kicks off energy system overhaul
CarbiCrete announces new CEO

Let’s go!

💰 Funding

🏗️ Assembly Corp. received a $1.25M investment from The Atmospheric Fund for their modular, pre-fabricated mass timber housing. Assembly’s solution is a great example of tackling climate change and housing shortages in tandem. Their buildings can reduce embodied emissions by as much as 40% while cutting waste and shortening construction times to get housing built faster.

💧 Quantum Technology received $2.5M from the federal government to scale-up its green hydrogen technology. Quantum has been in business for 40 years building large-scale hydrogen purifiers that can refine several tons per day.

🚰 E2metrix will be acquired by global water treatment company Ovivo. E2metrix specializes in technology to remove PFAS (i.e. “forever chemicals”) and other emerging contaminants in water. The two companies have been partnering since 2021 and Ovivo made a strategic investment into the company in 2022.

🚌 Nova Bus, a Quebec-based subsidiary of Volvo Group, received a $19M loan from Investissement Québec to support consolidation efforts. The electric bus maker is closing its NY plant to focus on it’s Quebec plants and the Canadian market. The move came with cuts to 125 jobs in Nova’s QC plant.

📈 Milestones

🧱 CarbiCrete appointed Jacob Homiller as CEO after co-founder Chris Stern stepped down. Homiller brings 25 years of industrial experience and was previously president and CEO of a high-performance metals company. CarbiCrete is a standout example of commercializing R&D - Stern started CarbiCrete in 2016 after licensing the tech from McGill University.

🔋 Li-Metal was named as one of the finalists for Bloomberg’s BNEF Pioneers, highlighting companies that are tackling key challenges and technology gaps in priority areas for the energy transition. Li-Metal is developing high-performance anodes for lithium batteries.

🧱 Lafarge Canada fully transitioned its plant in St-Constant, QC from producing traditional cement to it’s lower-carbon OneCem product.

🗞️ In the news

⚡️ Overhauling energy: Nova Scotia announced plans to restructure its energy sector, removing responsibility for regulation and planning from the privately-owned Nova Scotia Power. A Regulatory and Appeals Board will own regulation and a new arm’s length energy system operator will manage who gets access to the grid.

💵 Financing the transition: Hydro-Quebec is kicking off talks with potential partners on a $185B strategy to exit fossil fuels. The plan, which includes $110B by 2035 on clean power generation and $50B on grid reliability, is catching eyes in financial markets. Priority areas include upgrading existing hydro plants, tripling wind generation and leaning into energy efficiency efforts with consumers.

📊 Pension funds slow on climate: Canadian pension funds have huge potential to accelerate climate action with $4T in assets, but a new report found Canadian funds are moving slowly. Four of the 11 funds have no emissions reductions targets and many boards are entangled with fossil fuels. Quebec’s CDPQ and Ontario’s University Pension Plan are leading the way with B+ scores.

In other news:

Canada issued its second green bond, a vehicle for financing projects across clean transport, energy and biodiversity. It’s the first green bond in the world to include nuclear as an eligible category.
B.C.’s latest budget includes $1.3B in new funding to respond to natural disasters. It also included $318M more for climate tech investments like heat pump adoption, public infrastructure and electric school buses.
Alberta re-opened applications for open-pit coal mining in the Rocky Mountains. The applications have already been shut down twice.
Nova Scotia will not implement proposed rules on how and where people could build to protect them from rising sea levels. Instead, responsibility will fall to municipalities and home owners.
The feds shared draft rules to cut volatile organic compound (VOCs) emissions from the oil & gas sector. VOCs contribute to smog and health issues like cancer. Researchers recently found VOCs to be a major contributor to oil & gas emissions.

📣 What’s going on

🗓️ Climate Exchange: Resilient Cities by Climate Tech Ottawa: Connect with Ottawa’s climate tech crew to dive into the world of climate resilience, adaptation and sustainable cities. Feb 29th, Ottawa, ON.

💡 Energia Spring Cohort: The University of New Brunswick’s Energia Ventures accelerator is looking for applicants across energy, cleantech and artificial intelligence for its spring cohort. Apply by Mar 3rd.

🗓️ PDAC 2024: The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada conference will bring together the mineral exploration ecosystem with 30,000 attendees from around the world. Mar 3-6th, Toronto, ON.