REGINA - The province announced on Tuesday the launch of the very first Saskatchewan Technology Fund aimed at industry projects to reduce, sequester or capture emissions.
A total of $25 million will be made available to fund those industry-driven projects. In the announcement at Innovation Place at the University of Regina, Minister of Environment Christine Tell said the fund is meant to “serve as a catalyst accelerating the adoption of innovative technologies” and to help industry “compete and win in this global economy by lowering emissions and costs and attracting new investment.”
The fund will be administered by Innovation Saskatchewan, and opened for applications in mid-September with the first intake closing last week. The next step is for those applicants to be invited to submit full project proposals which will be reviewed by a team of experts within the Government of Saskatchewan.
Tell said they already received 20 project applications from across sectors, including those in oil and gas, mining, ethanol, manufacturing, pulp mills, and iron and steel mills.
The intention is for the fund to be open to any kind of projects that will get the provincial economy to net zero emissions. Tell said she is excited to see what industry puts toward.
“Our overarching goal is to spur on that innovation, and industry is going to make it happen,” said Tell. “We’re excited to see what industry puts forward for projects and we’re all gearing towards a zero emissions economy in Saskatchewan so that’s what it’s intended to do. It is a way to assist those innovators get projects up and running, and ones that would actually be scalable is what we’re hopeful for.”
According to the province’s news release, the fund is a flexible compliance option for regulated emitters under the province's Output-Based Performance Standards Program and Prairie Resilience climate change strategy, and designed in collaboration with industry partners. An industry-led advisory committee is in place to guide the fund.
Travis Davies, chair of the Technology Fund advisory committee, said the funding announcement marked the end of a long process for their advisory committee. “We came together in May of 2021 with a purpose to help design the program, made recommendations to the minister on guidance documents standard, application and evaluation process, so this is the end of a several year process.”
As for what projects would benefit from this fund, Davies said “good projects that get a lot of emissions and do so in a cost effective manner will be judged as most relevant to move forward."
