Highlights
Over 3000 attendees with international delegations from at least 19 different countries joined this event to discuss every aspect of the Hydrogen (H2) economy (e.g., technology, infrastructure) throughout its entire value chain (e.g., production, delivery, consumption)
Developing an Ontario – California – Alberta mobility ecosystem: A trilateral MoU was signed by EnerTech Capital, the California Mobility Center (CMC), and Invest Alberta Corporation (IAC), this partnership has been in the works for over 6 months
L-R: Jiajia Zhou, Analyst, EnerTech Capital, Wally Hunter, Managing Director, EnerTech Capital, Subid Wagley, Director, Business Operations, California Mobility Center, Lynette Tremblay, VP, Investor Services, Invest Alberta, Rick Christiaanse, CEO, Invest Alberta, Stacie Lara, Director of Investment, Energy, Invest Alberta. Source: Invest Alberta
Last week, Wally and I attended the Canadian Hydrogen Convention in Edmonton to sign an MoU among EnerTech Capital, the CMC, and IAC to foster the continental collaboration in advanced mobility investments. Here’s a link to the signing ceremony video that went on live and the brief chat with Rick Christiaanse (CEO of Invest Alberta) on what went on behind-the-scenes in building this partnership 😉 if you missed it.
California has always been a global leader and supporter of hydrogen investments and the CMC has been working to enhance the multilateral cooperation among countries and regions that are keen to explore the attractive avenue of new mobility where hydrogen is an essential element. As the largest hydrogen producer in Canada, Alberta is poised to leverage its expertise in the sector to accelerate both technology development and deployment (see Alberta Hydrogen Roadmap).
An expanding network of hydrogen trade routes, plans and agreements
Source: IRENA
“Hydrogen trade and investment flows will spawn new patterns of interdependence and bring shifts in bilateral relations.” Canada has the potential to develop new hydrogen trading relationships with the US, Asia Pacific, and European markets.
The 3-day Hydrogen Convention consisted of the strategic conference where industry leaders shared their view on challenges and opportunities of the industry, technical programs where 40+ papers were presented to share the latest progress in technologies, as well as the exhibition/tradeshow floor that features a variety of company booths including TC Energy, Air Products, Nikola, ATCO, Hydra Energy, etc.
Here’s a snapshot of the event:
Strategic Conference
Opportunities and challenges around hydrogen demand and supply are explored among stakeholders. Takeaways include the necessity of developing color-agnostic hydrogen projects, leveraging existing infrastructure and investing gigawatt (GW) scale projects to further drive down the cost. Blue H2 could be a key element to drive up the demand before green H2 becomes dominant. The demand for hydrogen from long-haul trucking, aviation, and rail is critical to improve the economics of technologies. There are also a couple of exciting announcements made by policy and industrial leaders, including:
$50M to from the Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney, to launch the Clean Hydrogen Centre of Excellence, to support hydrogen R&D
The new partnership announced between TC Energy and Nikola that aims to examine TC Energy’s proposed hydrogen production hub in Edmonton that could potentially provide fueling for Nikola trucks
Edmonton International Airport (EIA) has made several new announcements to generate demand for hydrogen while using the airport as a hub to test new technologies including:
a partnership with Toyota Canada that would help demonstrate and accelerate the use of hydrogen by decarbonizing its fleets with Toyota Mirai hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs)
EIA to be a future launch point and demonstration hub for Mitsui Canada’s technologies and partners in hydrogen and mobility
an MoU with Hydra Energy to convert EIA’s light-to-heavy duty fleets with its proprietary hydrogen-diesel, co-combustion system
an MoU with Japan Overseas Infrastructure Investment Corporation for Transport & Urban Development (“JOIN”) to promote investment and innovation for EIA’s Airport City Sustainability Campus and EIA’s development of Canada’s first consumer-facing hydrogen hub
With COP28 to take place in the UAE, Masdar, which is owned by Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala, has a strong focus on green hydrogen production and has recently signed a deal on GW-scale projects in Egypt for exporting to Europe
Technical Program
Learning experience from pilot projects and research were generously shared by leading engineers and experts in various “breakout rooms” running alongside the main conference. Two that I listened in on where Karen Jensen and Laura Pysyk from ATCO, who shared with us that the ATCO blending project has demonstrated that blending of up to 20% hydrogen into the natural gas pipeline has no impact on the end use appliances of residential customers and that their goal is to explore the impact of higher levels of blending on the appliances. As well as Nick Perkins from Linde Engineering concludes the possibility of extracting hydrogen with a wide range of purity from blended natural gas. Although the extracted H2 currently facing challenges for fuel-cell usage without high purity, the extracted H2 can be used for refinery.
The Exhibition/Tradeshow floor
One of the highlights of my experience at the convention – checking out different hydrogen technologies at their booths!
Here I am passing by the TC Energy booth, an image that was featured in the financial post! 😉
Here’s me holding the high-pressure filling nozzle for trucks (left) and low pressure filling nozzle for cars (right) at the Air Products H2 Refueling Stations. Air Products has invested $1.3 billion in the Edmonton region to build the world’s largest net-zero hydrogen facility.
JZ in the Nikola class 8 fuel cell truck!
JZ in the Hydra retrofitted truck that runs on a hydrogen-diesel, co-combustion system!
Wally Hunter and I at the booth of the Edmonton Region Hydrogen Hub
I’d like to thank Invest Alberta for the invitation to the 1st Canadian Hydrogen Convention. The amount of strategic interest and technology improvement are incredible to see. I also had a lot of fun learning from the industry experts and exploring emerging technologies (as you can see my big smiling face in all photos)! As part of the mobility ecosystem, we are thrilled by all the global collaborations, like the MOU between the CMC and the Qatar Mobility Innovations Center (QMIC) and look forward to working with early-stage companies and all other stakeholders to help accelerate technology developments and investments in the mobility and hydrogen space.
Stay tuned for more upcoming announcements on EnerTech!
Until next time,
JZ
jzhou@enertechcapital.com
