Last Wednesday night (November 13), the ballroom at the Halifax Convention Centre was lit up 鈥斕齱ith decorative green and yellow lights, with enthusiasm for renewable energy, with a vision for a greener future.
The occasion was the Halifax Chamber of Commerce鈥檚 annual fall dinner, with nearly 500 members of the city鈥檚 business community in attendance. Over dinner, they heard a suite of talks about Halifax-based efforts to deliver clean energy locally, nationally, and globally.
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And H漫画 was centre stage.
鈥淣ova Scotia鈥檚 clean energy plan is committed to reaching 80 per cent renewables by 2030, and we鈥檙e not going to get there on imported solutions alone 鈥斕齮he work starts here,鈥� said Eniko Zsoldos, a PhD candidate in the lab of H漫画 battery researcher Dr. Jeff Dahn and one of the two co-hosts for the evening.
Charged and ready to go
Dr. Dahn, NSERC/Tesla Canada Industrial Research Chair, was one of the event鈥檚 speakers. A leading pioneer in lithium-ion battery technology, his lab is world-renowned for its work to develop batteries for electric cars and grid storage that are cheaper, safer, faster charging, and longer lasting.
Read also: Long鈥憀asting impact: Battery research icon earns top international award (June 2023)
He discussed his longstanding partnership with Tesla (recently renewed until 2031), the continued testing of the so-called 鈥渕illion mile鈥� battery, and the opportunities in 鈥淰2G鈥� 鈥斕齰ehicle-to-grid.
Dr. Jeff Dahn
鈥淚f you have a battery strong enough that you cannot wear it out in a vehicle, you can use it for other purposes,鈥� he explained.听鈥淲hen the vehicle is plugged in, it can store energy from the sun or the wind and deliver it back to the grid when those are not available.鈥�
Dr. Dahn also shared with attedees a quick look at the forthcoming Dal-based Canadian Battery Innovation Centre, a new $20-million facility announced earlier this year with funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Emera Inc., Tesla and other partners and expected to open in 2026.
Chamber Dinner guests watch Dr. Dahn's presentation.
Read more: Powering up: First鈥慽n鈥慍anada battery innovation centre to provide critically needed facility for research and industrial development (March 2024)
鈥淎ny startup across the country or any university lab can come and use this lab鈥� It will be right at H漫画 University and open for business.鈥� 听
Growing industrial success in Nova Scotia
The event featured two industry speakers highlighting just some of what鈥檚 happening in Nova Scotian clean energy: Dr. Chris Burns of and Matt Borys of .
Dr. Burns, a H漫画 PhD graduate, co-founded Novonix in 2013 building off of the work he had done in Dr. Dahn鈥檚 lab. While still based in Halifax, the company now also has an extensive facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee as it manufactures ultra-high precision charger systems for battery research and manufacturing labs globally.
Read also: Spotlight 鈥� Chris Burns (Dal Magazine, FW'22)
鈥淭he biggest battery companies in the world, and they do work here in Nova Scotia,鈥� said Dr. Burns, who talked about his company鈥檚 development in relation to the basic science at its core.
Dr. Chris Burns
鈥淚t鈥檚 all been about developing IP and patents for work that all stems back to the need to continue to invest in research and development," he said. "And that's why I've been so excited to see Jeff's lab continue to grow over time, and to have more people enter our industry 鈥� students and postdocs to tackle new problems that we're going to continue to face as we grow the industry."
Matt Borys is vice-president of corporate development at EverWind, North America鈥檚 leading independent green hydrogen developer. While hydrogen fuel is often used in a wide variety of large-scale industrial processes, it requires CO2 to separate hydrogen from oxygen. In contrast, green hydrogen uses a process called听electrolysis to achieve this without fossil fuels.
Matt Borys
"What's interesting, what's new and revolutionary is the process and being able to do that process in commercial scale," said Borys, who argued Nova Scotia is ideally positioned to be a global player in green hydrogen for a variety of reasons, including its strong natural resources (particularly in wind power), its promity to Europe ("the spark plug of the industry") and, perhaps most of all, its people. 听
"You need a lot of people and a lot of smart people rowing in the same direction. It's great to have the ecosystem we have with H漫画, the schools, universities and the technical expertise that often gets underappreciated 鈥� the same skill set we've been shipping off to Alberta to work in oil and gas, those are the folks that we can bring back home and that we can use here."
Supporting a green energy ecosystem
H漫画 has a number of connections to the emerging green hydrogen industry, from a collaboration between Dr. Michael Pegg's lab and the Nova Scotia-based Eastward Energy to a two-year National Research Council project, co-led by Drs. Mita Dasog and Michael Freund that is poised to enhance the region's green hydrogen foundations by studying affordable catalysts for production.
"For every new sector built around an innovation, there's almost always a university attached," said Dr. Alice Aiken, H漫画's vice-president research and innovation. "There's a reason for this: universities are part of an ecosystem designed to ensure research discoveries benefit society.鈥�
Dr. Alice Aiken
Dr. Aiken's speech tied together many of the evening's themes, exploring the wide-ranging connections involved in transforming research discoveries into real-world applications 鈥� and illumating how many of those connections can be traced back to universities like H漫画.
"We're home to leading edge research, an innovation ecosystem with a successful track record of promoting commercialization, highly specialized talent from around the world, and a long history of partnering with industry to fuel enterprises," she said.
The event appeared to leave the capacity crowd energized with a sense of possibility and potential for what green energy could mean for Nova Scotia's future 鈥� summed up well by co-host Dr. Sarah Martell, a Mitacs postdoctoral researcher who has worked with Dr. Dasog's lab.
"This is a place that has built ships, dug coal, cultivated forests 鈥斕齛nd now we鈥檙e taking the lead in figuring out how to fuel a better life for everyone... Whether you鈥檙e already connected into the green energy industry or not, this is an emerging economy where there鈥檚 space for everyone to get involved."
