Photo of group of people at a COAST event (Centre for Ocean Applied Sustainable Technologies (COAST)).

Media Contacts

Ministry of Jobs and Economic Growth

Media Relations
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Backgrounders

What people are saying about funding for coastal green-energy innovation

Darlene Rotchford, parliamentary secretary for armed forces development and veterans affairs –

“B.C.’s coastal and Indigenous communities face unique challenges when it comes to energy costs and reliability, especially in remote marine environments. By supporting businesses to pilot clean, renewable marine technologies, we’re helping reduce reliance on diesel, strengthen coastal resilience and create good, sustainable jobs while positioning B.C. as a leader in the global blue economy.”

Derek Moss, assistant commissioner, western region, Canadian Coast Guard –

“The Canadian Coast Guard is committed to reducing our environmental impact and finding renewable-energy solutions. We are pleased to partner on this Innovation Challenge and look forward to testing and validating potential solutions against real operational challenges here on the West Coast.”

Peter Cowan, president and CEO, Innovate BC –

“The strength of B.C.’s maritime sector creates real opportunity for innovation, but getting new technologies into the field isn’t always straightforward. Innovate BC’s partnership with COAST through the new Integrated Marketplace Marine and Coastal Testbed is helping create pathways for companies to test and deploy their solutions against challenges like diesel dependence along B.C.’s coast. This is Look West in action — accelerating adoption, supporting the transition to clean energy and strengthening a sector that is foundational to our economy.”

Curran Crawford, executive director, Accelerating Community Energy Transformation (ACET) –

“The B.C. Marine Energy and Decarbonization Hub is advancing a new generation of ocean-based clean-energy solutions in British Columbia. By giving technology developers access to shared infrastructure, research expertise and clear pathways to real-world applications, we are strengthening our ocean economy, reducing reliance on diesel and accelerating world-class clean, marine energy innovation while supporting coastal communities and creating dynamic new economic opportunities.”

Volodimir Grebenyuk, CEO, Ascent Systems Technologies –

“We designed our autonomous platform to operate in the harshest Canadian conditions and have already tested it in remote geographies. The COAST challenge allows us to demonstrate its robustness and resilience in maritime coastal environments, supporting the Canadian Coast Guard with critical services while reducing reliance on fuel logistics and lowering carbon footprint. Programs like this are essential for turning innovation into operational capability.”

Erigene Bakangura, CEO, founder, Cleohydron Innovation –

“At Cleohydron, our mission is to displace diesel in remote operations and communities by enabling clean, reliable power through hydrogen-integrated energy systems. These systems are designed to overcome the inherent variability of renewable energy by combining short- and long-duration storage into a practical, deployable solution. We entered the COAST Innovation Challenge because the real barrier is not the availability of clean technologies, but how they perform in real-world conditions.”

Meiz Majdoub Jr., CEO, Mostar Labs –

“Mostar Labs is proud to participate in the COAST Innovation Challenge as we advance LilyPad, our modular marine-energy infrastructure platform designed to support cleaner, more resilient operations on the water and in remote coastal settings. We entered the challenge to validate real-world integration of renewables, storage and energy management, and to learn directly from the Canadian Coast Guard’s operational constraints. Challenges like this strengthen B.C.’s innovation ecosystem by reducing barriers to testing and accelerating deployment.”

Maja Maher, CEO and co-founder, Voltai –

“We see Voltai WaveNexus as part of a new generation of energy systems built specifically for coastal environments. This challenge gives us a chance to test the technology in real conditions and understand what it actually takes to deploy and operate it. Programs like this are important because they help move things out of the lab and into practical use.”