CICE Announces Recipients of 2024's First Call for Innovation Funding

Nine companies secure a total of $7.6 million to scale breakthrough solutions for building a net-zero economy

VANCOUVER, BC, July 22, 2024 /CNW/ - The B.C. Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy (CICE) is investing $7.6 million to fast-track the development, commercialization and adoption of clean energy and climate solutions in British Columbia. These non-dilutive investments are being made through CICE's first 2024 Call for Innovation, which attracted close to 200 applications from across the province.

CICE invests $7.6 million in nine B.C. companies to scale breakthrough clean energy and climate solutions for building a net-zero economy. (CNW Group/B.C. Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy)

"Congratulations to the nine inspiring companies awarded funding through CICE's first 2024 Call for Innovation," said Josie Osborne, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation. "These projects are essential for British Columbia's goals of building a clean economy and healthier environment with good-paying jobs for people and more economic opportunities for communities. We are proud to support CICE in nurturing innovation, generating employment, and ensuring long-term sustainability for our province."

Funded recipients playing a critical role in meeting climate action and clean energy objectives include:

BATTERY AND ENERGY STORAGE

• Brokkr Mineral Resources Corporation is pioneering a first-of-its-kind, nature-based (bio)hydrometallurgical process for clean, low carbon extraction and purification of battery-grade nickel and cobalt.
• Fuse Power Management Ltd. is accelerating the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) ecosystem by delivering a fully functional and scalable V2G solution that will optimize efficiency to balance the electricity grid with electric buses, reducing carbon and particulate emissions.
• Telescope Innovations Corp. is constructing a continuously operating lab-scale pilot for converting crude lithium chloride brines into battery-grade lithium carbonate, utilizing their carbon-negative and low-cost process, ReCRFT.

CARBON MANAGEMENT

• Arca Climate Technologies Inc., a leader in carbon mineralization technology and XPRIZE finalist, leverages historical mine waste to remove CO2 safely and permanently. And because it operates on the existing footprints of large-scale industrial operations, its pathway has gigatonne-scale potential, with an ultralight footprint.
• CO280 Solutions Inc. is developing large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) projects to permanently scale and increase affordability of carbon removal in the pulp and paper industry.

LOW CARBON BIO AND SYNTHETIC FUELS

• Hydron Energy Inc. is commercializing a disruptive solution that converts raw gases into clean refined fuel. CICE's funding will deploy Hydron's technology at the Wastewater Treatment Plant in Prince George, lowering emissions by upgrading biogas into renewable natural gas instead of flaring it.
• Salish Environmental Group is developing a co-generation technology that utilizes construction, demolition, and forestry wood waste to produce heat and electricity to power greenhouses to help create year-round food security, turning a previously underutilized bioresource into an emissions reducing fuel.

LOW CARBON HYDROGEN

• pH7 Technologies is commercializing an electrolyzer enabled extraction process to get more copper out of low-grade ores to keep up with growing market demand, while also producing clean hydrogen to lower mine emissions.
• HPDI Technology is advancing a project, through a new joint venture between Westport Fuel Systems and Volvo Group, that aims to nearly double the range of hydrogen-HPDI equipped heavy duty trucks.

"With 13 companies featured on the 2024 Global Cleantech 100 list, Canada is already leading as an innovation nation," said Sarah Goodman, CEO of CICE. "British Columbia is home to many remarkable climate technology entrepreneurs who are spearheading this movement. CICE is proud to support the growth of these exceptional companies by validating actionable decarbonization pathways, unlocking access to capital, and accelerating the development and adoption of essential net-zero technologies." 

Since October 2021, CICE has played a critical role in bridging collaboration between public and private sectors, and providing BC-based innovators faster, easier access to the early-stage funding and collaborative partnerships they need to be global leaders in climate action. To date, CICE has invested $31 million in 47 clean energy and climate technology projects valued at over $170 million.

About CICE

The B.C. Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy (CICE) is an independent, not-for-profit corporation that provides early-stage, non-dilutive investment to fast-track the commercialization of British Columbia's most impactful clean energy solutions – from Canada to the world. We match the urgency and efficiency of the companies we fund, driving innovation like the planet depends on it. Because it does. Together with our climate-first community of innovators, industry leaders, academia, government, and Indigenous partners, we advance future pathways to net-zero – leveraging British Columbia's clean energy advantages to attract investment, create good jobs and build sustainable economic prosperity for decades to come. www.cice.ca

SOURCE B.C. Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy

For questions or interviews, please contact: Lindsay Chan, B.C. Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy, [email protected]