Dr. Ged McLean
Executive Director, CICE
The B.C. Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy is scaling B.C.’s clean energy solutions by funding innovation and fostering collaboration.
The B.C. Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy (CICE) is working toward achieving net-negative emissions in B.C. and beyond by providing non-dilutive funding to the province’s most promising clean energy innovation companies — in the most efficient and effective way possible.
“CICE is an independent, not-for-profit corporation that helps fund the development, commercialization, and scaling of made-in-B.C. clean energy technologies and solutions — from Canada to the world,” says Ged McLean, CICE’s Executive Director. “We unite B.C. innovators, leading corporations, government, academia, investors, communities, and Indigenous rights holders around one primary focus: advancing the world toward a net-zero carbon future.”
Fast-tracking clean energy innovation
Founded in 2021 with $105 million raised through member-based partnership commitments from the Government of British Columbia, Shell Canada Ltd., and the Government of Canada (through Natural Resources Canada’s Energy Innovation Program), CICE works to support cleantech and sustainability companies in growing and scaling their innovative solutions, which cover four key focus areas — battery technology and energy storage, carbon management, low-carbon bio and synthetic fuels, and low-carbon hydrogen — in a range of industries, including mining, forestry, marine, oil and gas, aviation, agriculture, transportation, and industrial manufacturing.
“CICE is uniquely positioned at the intersection of breakthrough and commercialization to help ideas become actions,” says McLean. “We’re focused on enabling the implementation of long-reaching climate solution technologies that have the potential to reduce the impacts of climate change while building a strong commercial sector for a decarbonized future. Since its inception, CICE has already funded over 20 B.C.-based companies, and we’re just getting started.”
Advancing clean energy innovation like the planet depends on it. Because it does.
Battery technology and energy storage
CICE is powering toward emissions-free electrification with its efforts to shape B.C.’s emerging battery and energy storage sector. One of the battery-focused companies that it’s funding and helping to scale is Moment Energy Inc.
“Moment provides a clean, affordable, and reliable battery storage system by repurposing retired electric vehicle (EV) batteries,” says Chris Benson, Vice-President of Projects and Partnerships at Moment Energy. “More than a funding arm, CICE has facilitated and propelled Moment to develop products widely applicable to many different business streams. With CICE’s support, we know that a large number of 2030’s expected 30 million retired EV batteries can be repurposed into battery storage solutions, providing additional energy for those that require our solutions.”
Low-carbon bio and synthetic fuels
CICE supports companies developing and scaling low-carbon fuels to achieve net-zero targets, including Takachar, which is on a mission to fight climate change by transforming massive amounts of waste biomass into marketable products.
“We’re developing small-scale, low-cost, and portable systems to deploy to rural, hard-to-access communities that will locally upgrade and densify crop and forest residues on-site into higher-value bioproducts such as fertilizer blends, biofuels, and chemicals,” explains Kevin Kung, Takachar’s Chief Technology Officer. “The goal is to create a profitable network of rural communities that are self-sufficient in their production and consumption of key chemicals without reliance on expensive, carbon-intensive imports, thereby advancing climate justice.”
Carbon management
Scaling B.C.’s carbon avoidance, capture, and removal solutions is another focus for CICE. One pioneering company in this space is Cascadia Seaweed Corp., a company that cultivates and processes seaweed to provide low-carbon solutions for agriculture.
“Cascadia Seaweed is a vertically integrated agtech company dedicated to addressing climate change and food security,” says Bill Collins, Cascadia’s Chair and Co-Founder. “We cultivate local species of seaweed on low-impact ocean farms in partnership with coastal First Nations. We then harvest that seaweed and manufacture biostimulants and agrifeed supplements for land-based farmers that reduce emissions and increase yields.”
Thanks to CICE’s support, Cascadia has expanded its operations and built a bioprocessing facility in Northern B.C.
Low-carbon hydrogen
CICE works to enable hard-to-decarbonize industries to reach net-zero and beyond. CICE funding for low-carbon hydrogen projects includes its support of HTEC, a company developing, integrating, and operating clean hydrogen energy solutions in strategic North American markets to enable the transportation sector’s transition to a low-carbon future.
“HTEC is planning and building multiple clean hydrogen production facilities across Canada,” says Shannon Halliday, HTEC’s Vice-President of Sales and Marketing. “These facilities will supply HTEC’s growing network of hydrogen fueling stations, which will target both light- and heavy-duty transport. Additionally, the company facilitates the transition of medium- and heavy-duty fleets to zero-emission vehicles in Canada and the U.S.”
To learn more, visit cice.ca.
