The federal government of Canada will invest CAD $15m to support six clean fuels projects across the country, including CAD $10m for two projects in the Niagara region, according to a news release.
The federal investments include:
- $4.6 million to StormFisher Hydrogen to support a front-end engineering (FEED) study for a renewable natural gas (RNG) production facility at BMI’s Multimodal Hub in Thorold, Ontario.
- Upon the completion of the FEED study in the summer of 2025 and construction of the planned CAD $200m production facility in 2027, StormFisher Hydrogen will combine renewable electricity from Ontario’s clean grid along with biogenic CO2 emissions from local industry to produce 1.25m gigajoules of RNG.
- The project will support the decarbonization of the Canadian natural gas system and anchor a hydrogen hub in Thorold that will help attract other clean energy and technology businesses to the Niagara region.
- More than CAD $5m to CHAR Technologies to support FEED studies that will enable CHAR to replicate their first-of-its-kind woody-biomass-to-renewable-energy facility in Thorold, Ontario in other parts of Canada.
- Supported by an existing investment of $5 million from NRCan, CHAR is finalizing its construction of its clean fuels production facility at BMI’s Multimodal Hub in Thorold, which will convert woody biomass to renewable energy like RNG and biocarbon. The new NRCan funding announced today will enable CHAR Technologies to replicate this work at four new facilities in Kirkland Lake, Ontario; Drayton Valley, Alberta; and Saint Félicien and La Salle, Quebec and create a distributed network of low-carbon fuels production facilities across three provinces in Canada.
- Taken together, the Thorold, Ontario, project — which is expected to reach commercial production this year — and the four other clean fuel production facilities in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Quebec; and Alberta – which are expected to come online in the following two years — will maximize the value of underutilized waste wood resources and help decarbonize Canada’s steel and mining industries, and Canadian gas utilities.
- CAD $5m to support Azure Sustainable Fuels Corp. in delivering a FEED study to support the construction and operation of a sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) production facility in Port Colborne, Ontario.
- If the project reaches a positive Final Investment Decision (FID), following the completion of the FEED study, it is expected that the Azure’s SAF project would support approximately 1,500 construction jobs and 150 full time jobs during operations in Port Colborne, Ontario.
- The FEED study is expected to be completed in by the end of 2024 and the construction of the planned facility would be commenced immediately following a positive FID. The proposed project will be located on the north end of Port Colborne, Ontario, along the Welland Canal — a strategic location that will provide immediate access to local and global markets.
- The planned processing facility in Port Colborne will leverage Canada’s agricultural sector to produce SAF that will meet the growing demand to help reduce emissions from the aviation sector. Azure’s proposed project in Port Colbourne is one of three projects that Azure is progressing in Canada, with support from the federal government.
“We are leveraging Canada’s innovative clean tech companies and abundant range of feedstocks — including forest byproducts, agricultural crops and our low-emitting electricity grid — to grow Canada’s domestic production of clean fuels across the economy,” the release states.
