StorTera Wins Grand Prize in Cleantech Challenge with Canadian Partner Equilibrium Engineering

StorTera, an energy storage innovator in Edinburgh, are delighted to announce that they have been awarded the $1 million grand prize with their Canadian partner Equilibrium Engineering for the highly competitive Canada-UK Power Forward Challenge. The award was announced during the GLOBE Forum 2022 in Vancouver by the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Natural Resources Canada.

The Power Forward Challenge was aimed at accelerating smart grid technology in a collaborative initiative between the Canadian and UK governments. The $1 million prize was awarded by Natural Resources Canada to the Alba Nova project, which was developed by StorTera and their Canadian partner Equilibrium Engineering. The winning project addresses some of the key challenges in the wide scale roll-out of smart grids, which are essential to achieve net zero targets. One of the key issues is how to bring multiple stakeholders together, such as grid network operators and consumers, to share both the costs and benefits of upgrading our energy system to handle the integration of renewable energy, electrification of heating and charging of electric vehicles. The innovative solution utilised an artificial intelligence platform to optimise the performance of the smart grid in real time by accurate forecasting of weather and energy demand for the day ahead. A full scale demonstration project was installed in the Town of Berwick, Nova Scotia. The installation included intelligent energy storage, energy efficiency upgrades to buildings, renewable energy generation and the ability to control electrical loads such as hot water heating.

The performance of the final solution was verified and validated by industry leading experts at Dalhousie University in Canada.

This project demonstrates the advances in low carbon technology and what can be achieved today by companies like StorTera, who are at the forefront of developments in energy storage. The Alba Nova team plans to roll this solution out to other utilities and market segments across Canada and the UK.

“The UK is proud to partner with Canada in the Power Forward Challenge, which supports innovative and disruptive proposals for smart energy systems to help us meet the changing energy needs of a net-zero future. I am delighted to see the success of this challenge in action and to be part of today’s awards, which helps ot make a clean future possible”

Thomas Codrington
British Consul General in Vancouver, Government of the United Kingdom

“Our government challenged innovators to find breakthrough cleantech solutions to help solve some of Canada’s
biggest problems — and they delivered. I’m proud to award the grand prize for the Power Forward Challenge to Equilibrium Engineering and their UK partner StorTera.”

The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson
Minister of Natural Resources Canada