TransAlta is one of Canada’s largest producers of wind power and Alberta’s largest producer of hydroelectric power. It owns, operates and develops power generation assets in Canada, the US and Australia.
The company has agreed to acquire a 50% interest in the Tent Mountain Renewable Energy Complex (TM-REX), an early-stage 320MW pumped hydro storage project in southwest Alberta owned by Montem Resources. The C$24.7 million (US$18 million) deal is expected to complete shortly.
Montem, which has carried out development studies for the green hydrogen electrolyser element of TM-Rex, has described it as “an outstanding renewable energy project with compelling economics”.
Frontier Fund 1
TransAlta said it has an indirect investment in the emerging technology via the ‘Energy Impact Partners Deep Decarbonization Frontier Fund 1’. Last year, the company pledged to invest US$25 million over the next four years via the fund, and invested US$10 million in 2022.
In June 2022 the Fund joined a $198 million fund-raising for Electric Hydrogen (EH2), an electrolysis technology that is specially designed to work with cheap, variable renewable power for the “high-volume, low-cost production required to support massive industrial operations”.
TransAlta made a direct US$2 million equity investment last year in Ekona Power, which is developing a methane pyrolysis technology that produces hydrogen from natural gas. Because its byproduct is solid carbon, it claims to reduce emissions by 98% compared with steam methane reforming, which produces carbon dioxide.
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