Foresight and COSIA Select First-Ever Winner of Pioneering ARCTIC Innovation Challenge Program

Vancouver, CANADA — Foresight Cleantech Accelerator Centre and COSIA member companies – ConocoPhillips Canada, Imperial, Suncor, Canadian Natural Resources Limited and Devon Energy – today announced AMSEnergy Corp as the winner of the final stage of the ARCTIC Waste Heat Challenge. AMSEnergy’s Heat Pipe Heat Exchanger (HPHX) technology has been designed to reduce costs and greenhouse gases and increase energy efficiency by capturing and re-purposing heat lost during oil sands production.

As part of the Waste Heat Challenge process, AMSEnergy  participated in a six-month sprint and received support to advance their waste heat technology. In the final stage of the challenge, almost $500,000 will go towards adapting AMSEnergy’s technology to an in situ oil sands facility. A front-end engineering design study is expected to support the commercialization of the new technology and will be completed in March 2018.

“With six challenges currently underway across a number of resource sectors, the ARCTIC program has proven to be a successful model for incentivizing transformative technologies that address environmental and energy issues,” said Neil Huff, Managing Director of Foresight. “We would like to congratulate AMSEnergy for being the first innovator to reach the final stage in an ARCTIC challenge.”

“Challenge programs like these have been great for connecting COSIA members with innovators who may have potential solutions to the problems we are trying to solve,” says Dan Wicklum, COSIA chief executive. “This is a rigorous process. Congratulations to AMSEnergy for advancing its technology through the sprint process and bringing it to the field where it will have a real impact.”

“AMSEnergy is thrilled to work with Canadian industry to advance a new technology that will have economic and environmental benefits,” said Michael Sams, Founder and Owner of AMSEnergy. “We look forward to the successful conclusion of the study and to contributing to job creation and building a supply chain here in Canada.”

The ARCTIC Innovation Challenge program brings together industry, entrepreneurs, and the public sector to find and fund cleantech solutions for resource sector challenges in western Canada. It is funded with support from Western Economic Diversification (WD) and the BC Innovation Council (BCIC). Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) partnered with Foresight on funding the initial phases of the ARCTIC Waste Heat Challenge. Consulting partners Tessellate Inc. and The Delphi Group are providing advisory services.

About FORESIGHT CLEAN TECHNOLOGY ACCELERATOR CENTRE 

Foresight is a BC-based not-for-profit that provides early-stage innovators in cleantech, automation and advanced manufacturing with the resources, expertise, and partners they need to accelerate their growth and eventually commercialize their products. Foresight startups have gone on to create millions of dollars in investment and 100+ jobs in Canada. ARCTIC is Foresight’s flagship program and brings together industry, entrepreneurs, and the public sector to find and fund cleantech solutions for resource sector challenges in western Canada. Find out more at www.foresightcac.com and follow on Twitter @ForesightCAC.

About COSIA 

Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) is a unique alliance of oil sands producers focused on accelerating environmental performance in Canada’s oil sands. COSIA enables collaboration and innovation between thinkers from industry, government, academia and the wider public to improve measurement, accountability and performance in the oil sands across our environmental priority areas of greenhouse gases, land, water and tailings. COSIA members search the world for solutions to our toughest problems. And COSIA has some of the best minds on the planet working on technologies to enable responsible and sustainable development. To date, COSIA has shared 936 distinct environmental technologies and innovations that cost over $1.33 billion to develop. For more information, visit: www.cosia.ca and follow us on twitter @COSIA_ca.

Contact Information: 

FORESIGHT media contact: Alex Carr Tel: 1.778.384.8711 alex@acarrconsulting.com

For more information on COSIA, contact: Eileen Kahler Eileen.Kahler@cosia.ca

For more information on the ARCTIC program, contact: Neil Huff nhuff@foresightcac.com