Cascade Institute

Natural Resources Canada has opened a call for proposals under the Energy Innovation Program’s Innovation Ecosystem Enablers stream — funding for the shared facilities and test centres that help de-risk emerging energy technologies.

Cascade Institute’s Peter Massie, who leads the Institute’s Geothermal Energy Office, says the call is important chance to spur made-in-Canada energy innovation at a time when it’s needed most.

Massie likens the call to proposals to past projects in which Canadian energy expertise made big leaps. AOSTRA’s Underground Test Facility, for example, de-risked steam-assisted gravity drainage and helped grow in-situ oil sands production from near zero in the late 1980s to roughly 1.8 million barrels a day today. The U.S. Department of Energy’s FORGE site made breakthroughs in enhanced geothermal, helping Fervo Energy cut drilling costs and raise billions in private capital — what Massie calls “a perfect example of how public de-risking can crowd in private investment.” NASA’s wind-power test centres brought experts together across sectors to catalyze key elements of modern turbine design.

Test centres are especially valuable for subsurface technologies like geothermal where the cost and risk of drilling a well is the single biggest barrier facing innovators, Massie says.

“A shared facility lowers that barrier,” he explains, “and the data it produces validates the subsurface conditions for the projects that follow.”

The Innovation Ecosystem Enablers call is an important part of building that kind of infrastructure.

“If you’re working on innovative energy technologies, this call is worth a serious look,” says Massie.

See the call for proposals.