Aqua-Cell offers a made-in-Alberta, clean-energy storage solution
You’d be forgiven for walking into Keith Cleland’s space at NAIT’s Centre for Grid Innovation (CGI) and having no idea what it is that he and his company, Aqua-Cell Energy, have built.
To the untrained eye, the device is an indecipherable collection of hoses, valves, gauges, small plastic tanks and, anchoring it all, what resembles an undersized gurney surfaced with a thick blue metal plate. A “high-voltage” sticker on it adds a sense of danger to mystery.
But that sticker also hints at the machine’s purpose. While it bears no resemblance to, say, the ubiquitous alkaline cell that powers a flashlight, or the increasingly recognizable, boxy lithium ion cells that set EVs in motion, Cleland's device is a battery. And it’s one of a kind, built onsite in partnership with staff from NAIT’s Applied Research group.
It may, however, prove to be as transformative as its more common counterparts. Since arriving at CGI around the middle of 2023, Aqua-Cell has been driven by primarily one goal: to harness the power of renewable energy. But just as its battery runs counter to expectations, the company intends to do that harnessing in a uniquely sustainable way.
Hence the hoses and tanks. Aqua-Cell’s battery – big enough to provide power at an industrial scale – runs on inexpensive, safe and readily available saltwater. That leads naturally into Aqua-Cell’s other, loftier goal.
“We would like to be a key part of the clean-energy transition,” says Cleland.
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Filling the gap in the market (cheaply)
A background of seemingly disparate experiences led Cleland to the idea underlying Aqua-Cell.
Originally from Calgary, he’s a chemical engineer by training, with a master’s degree from the University of Waterloo. In the energy industry, he’s worked with what are known as flow batteries, in which electricity is stored through interactions between chemicals dissolved in liquid. In the water industry, he’s used electricity to treat saltwater.
It later occurred to him to combine the two. “I realized that there's this big gap in the energy-storage market,” says Cleland. “Solar is now the cheapest form of electricity, but the thing holding it back is that we don't have a cheap way to store it for long periods of time.”
Cleland wondered if a flow battery using saltwater could be that cheap way. Electricity from a photovoltaic panel or wind turbine would break the salt compound, sodium chloride, into ions of opposite charge. These could then be pumped into and held in separate tanks – positive sodium into one, negative chloride into another.
They could be contained almost indefinitely. When allowed to naturally recombine, the process would reverse, producing electricity rather than consuming it. Cleland went on to prove as much in his thesis project at Waterloo.
But it wasn’t until a chance meeting with CGI interim manager Darren Dunfield (Alternative Energy Technology ’16) at a conference that commercialization of Cleland’s saltwater flow battery became possible.
“I realized that there's this big gap in the energy-storage market.”
“He was in a position to advance to the next stage,” recalls Dunfield, who would also be able to connect Aqua-Cell with funding for scaleup. “He had a working prototype and he needed the space and some financial backing.”
At CGI, Aqua-Cell also has access to equipment and expertise. NAIT staff have helped refine the battery’s design, going so far as to machine parts onsite. And they continue to support Cleland and his small team as they seek further funding for what’s now a functional, large-scale device. Aqua-Cell’s battery can be ramped up to produce close to a kilowatt of electricity, or enough to meet roughly half of the daily power needs of an average Alberta home.
“He's an entrepreneur who knows what he wants,” says Curtis Allen, a technologist with the Centre for Sensors and Systems Integration, also a partner on the project. When the path forward is unclear, “that's where we can fit in and push them closer to their goals,” he adds.
Cleland believes Aqua-Cell has moved toward those goals more quickly than it could have done alone. “Having space and people that can help, I think that was critical in our scaleup,” he says.
“I'm not aware of anywhere else in Canada that has those opportunities.”
Battery in a sea can
For Aqua-Cell, “scaling up” will mean introducing massive tanks of saltwater of 1,000 litres or more. But Cleland isn’t stopping there.
“The next major milestone for us is getting our first shipping container unit out,” he says.
The more Aqua-Cell batteries that can be produced and linked to one another – then packaged in that large, portable container – the greater their potential.
Combined, the units could satisfy a wide variety of scenarios as primary or backup power derived from clean sources, whether or not the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.
(They can even operate at -40 C, making them a possible defense against midwinter blackouts.)
What’s more, Dunfield points out, it’s economical.
Compared to lithium-ion batteries, for example, “the financial metrics are very attractive. It would be a very low-cost solution.”
And all of the components and expertise required for an Aqua-Cell system are locally available, Dunfield adds.
Based on these strengths, Cleland’s company is exploring the possibility of piloting their technology with a small number of mid-sized Canadian cities. That’s guiding the next phase of the partnership with NAIT. With the mechanics of the system established, a focus on automation comes next, transforming an Aqua-Cell unit into a plug-and-play addition to an electrical system.
Ultimately, Cleland hopes that further development of his battery can help usher in a new era of greater reliance on renewable sources to meet a demand for electricity that is rising faster than ever worldwide.
“The ability to store energy is not something that's traditionally been a part of our electricity grid,” Cleland says. “So I could see Aqua-Cell as being one of the key leaders in [contributing to] a more net-zero electricity grid, in a way that doesn't break the bank.”
Dunfield thinks he can see that, too. “I really believe in the tech,” he says. “It's a good Alberta product.”