CanmetENERGY, Natural Resources Canada

CanmetENERGY, NRCan

(Ottawa, Ontario)
(Varennes, Quebec)
(Devon, Alberta)

CanmetENERGY is the Canadian leader in clean energy research and development. Over 100 years of research and collaboration with industry, academia and other governments has established CanmetENERGY as a knowledge centre on clean energy technologies. As such, we are the Government of Canada’s technical resource for energy-related standards, regulations, policies and programs.

Types of R&D conducted

Clean energy technology research, development, and demonstration activities at CanmetENERGY are accelerating innovation of power production, load management, and energy efficiency technologies and processes.

Buildings and Communities

CanmetENERGY is a leader in providing energy solutions for the built environment. Our research is targeting net zero buildings and communities through advances in technology, integrated energy systems, modelling and optimization tools, and market adoption activities such as support to rating, labeling, and regulatory measures.

Renewable Energy

Our leading-edge scientists are discovering and developing innovative technologies that will use renewable energy from wind, solar, marine, hydroelectric, earth and bioenergies to fulfill energy requirements for electricity, heating and cooling. We also address the technical, institutional and regulatory barriers facing grid integration of renewable power.

Industrial Processes

CanmetENERGY applies its energy expertise to the benefit of industrial-scale power, manufacturing and processing plants. Our knowledge sharing and technological tools assist industry in implementing more energy-efficient technologies and processes.

Transportation

At CanmetENERGY, advanced technology research, development and demonstrations are helping to refine advanced fuels, hybrid and electric vehicles, hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, and the supporting infrastructure.

Oil Sands

Our leading-edge scientists currently conduct research and technology development in the following areas: extraction and tailings; water management; multiphase systems, upgrading oil sands and heavy oil, air emissions and future fuels. While the oil sands industry has made significant technological advances, the growth of annual production of oil sands presents several environmental challenges to land, air, water and energy conservation that will need to be addressed for Canada to pursue oil sands in a sustainable manner. With an in-depth understanding of oil sands processes and strong fundamental science capabilities, our scientists provide solutions and knowledge for addressing critical oil sands environment issues while also ensuring it remains an economically viable product for Canada.

Clean Fossil Fuel

Scientists at CanmetENERGY are leading the research and development of a diverse set of innovative technologies that will make fossil fuel combustion cleaner and contribute to the sustainable use of this resource. Through our research in carbon capture and storage technologies and in combustion processes such as clean coal technologies, gasification, oxy-fuel combustion, fuel and emission assessment, pollution control systems, and combustion system optimization, we are making current combustion processes more efficient while reducing their hazardous emissions.

Services

We work with industry, academia and other governments to develop more energy efficient and cleaner technologies and processes. Through our research and service agreements, clients leverage our modelling and analytical capacity, research expertise, and unique facilities to evaluate and innovate their products, technologies and processes.

Whether it involves fuel analysis in our characterization laboratory, the evaluation of CO₂ capture and compression at our state-of-the-art CanCO₂ facility, or testing in the real-world environment at the Canadian Centre for Housing Technology, clients benefit from our highly skilled, confidential, and professional research services.

Partners and collaboration opportunities

At CanmetENERGY, we foster a broad range of successful research and demonstration collaborations with industry, academia and other governments to move ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace.

SPOTLIGHT – Drake Landing Solar Community

CanmetENERGY brought together industry, funding agencies, and three levels of government to deliver this unprecedented demonstration of solar thermal, energy efficiency, and community-scale energy storage technologies that is on track to fulfilling ninety percent of each home’s space heating requirements from solar energy.

SPOTLIGHT – Upstream Petroleum Air Issues Research Initiative

Collaborative projects undertaken by the CanmetENERGY Upstream Petroleum Air Issues Research Initiative have led to the development of provincially enforced best management practices to reduce fugitive methane emissions and guidelines for the efficient operation of solution gas flares. As well, the first camera-based optical technology to detect and quantify black carbon soot in flare plumes was developed in collaboration with Carleton University. This unique technology is currently being demonstrated and verified internationally through collaborative field trials with the World Bank Global Gas Flaring Reduction partnership and the Global Methane Initiative.

SPOTLIGHT – Intelligent Buildings

Buildings generally do not reach targeted energy performance due to poor operation of their systems. Though large buildings are equipped with central control systems and numerous sensors, no deep analysis is performed to analyze and evaluate their operations. CanmetENERGY’s Intelligent Buildings program performs R&D to provide building managers and operators with knowledge and tools to perform continuous optimization of the building mechanical systems in order to improve their energy performance.

SPOTLIGHT – Canadian Carbonization Research Association (CCRA)

Since the mid-1960s, CanmetENERGY has been conducting research on metallurgical coal and coke technologies for this association of metallurgical coal producers and iron and steel manufacturers. CanmetENERGY was instrumental in the creation of the CCRA and its research continues to result in dramatically increased production rates with significantly lower energy consumption and emissions for this industry.

Unique or high-value hardware and/or software

Through research centres in Devon, Alberta; Ottawa, Ontario; and Varennes, Quebec, and its network of partner test facilities, CanmetENERGY offers a broad portfolio of unique energy modelling and research facilities.

SPOTLIGHT – RETScreen

The RETScreen Clean Energy Project Analysis Software is a unique decision support tool which can be used worldwide to evaluate the energy production and savings, costs, emission reductions, financial viability and risk for various types of renewable-energy and energy-efficient technologies.

SPOTLIGHT – CanCO₂ Research Facility

The CanmetENERGY CO₂ Research Facility is a state-of-the-art research test platform to study and evaluate the performance of CO₂ capture and compression processes, the impacts of flue gas impurities (such as SO_x, NO_x and mercury), and the removal of these pollutants using the CO₂ capture process. CanmetENERGY’s advanced CO₂ gas separation and removal system represents an efficient and cost-effective approach for the capture and compression of CO₂ and control of multi-pollutants from the oxy-fuel combustion of coal and other fossil fuels for permanent and safe storage.

SPOTLIGHT – Asphaltene Analyzer

CanmetENERGY has developed an asphaltene analyzer that has garnered a lot of interest among oil sands companies. The standard asphaltene content determination procedure is time consuming and technician-dependent. The CanmetENERGY asphaltene analyzer eliminates this tedious wet-lab procedure and replaces it with an easy, operator independent, instrumented one. The method and instrument are being commercialized in collaboration with Advanced Materials and Sensors Engineering, Alberta Innovates – Technology Futures.

Contact

CanmetENERGY

John Marrone
Director General, CanmetENERGY in Ottawa
1 Haanel Drive, Building 3
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 1M1, Canada

Gilles Jean
Director General, CanmetENERGY in Varennes
1615 Blvd. Lionel-Boulet
Varennes, Québec
J3X 1P7, Canada

Dr. Hassan Hamza
Director General, CanmetENERGY in Devon
1 Oil Patch Drive
Devon, Alberta
T9G 1A8, Canada

Email CanmetENERGY