The Battery Metals Association of Canada details the case for a Western Canadian Battery Hub, focusing on the importance of coordinated strategies across jurisdictions to enhance the critical minerals sector and create specialised industry clusters for economic growth and resilience.
Defining the strategy is just the first step. Actioning the strategy is what enables its implementation. However, with such a wide scope of application, actions must be undertaken in a planned and coordinated manner across jurisdictions and segments of the industry to maximise their impact and capitalise on the opportunities available.
With this in mind, the Battery Metals Association of Canada (BMAC), collaborated with the Transition Accelerator and Energy Futures Lab, to explore what the most effective actions would be to aid the development of the critical minerals to battery sector within Western Canada, creating regional capabilities and capacity, and augmenting developments in the east.
A case for a Western Canadian Battery Hub
With abundant supplies of a wide range of critical minerals, Canada has been hoisted into the global spotlight as a key source for these highly sought-after resources that many sectors are so reliant on, with energy transition and defence applications topping the list.
And while Canada has been active and made significant investments in the critical minerals to battery space, many of those investments have been singularly focused on specific organisations, leaving broader opportunities to build a larger and more integrated industry untapped.
Further challenging Canada’s efforts is the patchwork of jurisdictionally specific critical mineral strategies and other initiatives across the country, each of which is disconnected from the others and absent a common vision or collaborative pathway forward.
The Western Canadian Battery Hub aims to address these gaps by finding common alignments in the strategies and supporting their implementation in a coordinated, systemic manner. Strengthened by this collaborative approach, ultimately, a more robust minerals-to-battery ecosystem can be built –one that benefits from many regional advantages that can be leveraged to enable specialisation, resulting in a more competitive and resilient ecosystem.
While the goal is to establish a long-term position for Canada that fosters economic prosperity, this collaborative approach could ultimately prove to be disruptive, creating a new, uniquely Canadian position in the sector globally.
Defining the opportunity
To understand the full value a Western Canadian Battery Hub could provide, it is essential to thoroughly analyse the opportunities and gaps across the entire ecosystem. And involving a wide variety of stakeholders in this exercise is crucial to uncovering all the pertinent details. As a result, stakeholders from across industry, government, academia, and a variety of development organisations were invited to participate in this assessment and provide their perspectives on the opportunities and gaps the industry faced.
As a starting point, stakeholders were asked to help identify potential industrial clusters that could be incorporated into a broader battery hub. In this case, an industrial cluster was considered to be a group of companies within a defined geographic region that mutually benefit from their proximity, such as through shared infrastructure, or from closely linked operations, like supplying to or contributing value-added processing to another organisation’s product, as well as through integrated research and innovation activities. Essentially, the cluster would provide economic and operational advantages to the companies, with the added side benefit of building a compelling business case for attracting new developments and further investment in the region.
The cluster assessment involved a review of the critical mineral deposits in the west, overlaid with the areas having a high concentration of operational sites and projects. Also considered was how existing and required infrastructure could shape or determine the viability of the cluster. Stakeholders then evaluated the conditions for the cluster’s success and identified key strategic investments for the region.
The output of this work is the identification and analysis of several specialised battery industry clusters in Western Canada that could be further incorporated into a larger and complete battery ecosystem.
Elements of a prosperous industry cluster
The primary advantage of establishing industry clusters within a broader hub network is that each cluster can specialise in what it does best, eliminating duplication as well as the need to incorporate functions that may not be optimally suited for the region. On their own, these individual clusters become economic hotspots, but when connected into the broader ecosystem, economic and commercial opportunities are further amplified with inter-cluster trade.
Some key elements for the success of an industrial cluster were found to be the following:
- Presence of mineral resources and/or process materials, including reagents
- Affordable low-carbon energy
- Existing industrial, transport, and energy infrastructure
- Availability of a skilled workforce
- Supportive policy and regulatory environment
- Inclusion of Indigenous voices and perspectives from the outset
- Strong community involvement and acceptance
- An active industry with existing downstream markets
- Access to a diversity of markets
- Strong and connected research and development innovation networks
Western Canada battery clusters
Considering a wide range of factors, including the identified elements for cluster success, the assessment of opportunities for battery clusters in Western Canada resulted in the identification of five key clusters in British Columbia and Alberta that could be integrated into a complete battery ecosystem.
Noting that further work is required to determine how Saskatchewan and Manitoba may also contribute, the starting of an ecosystem could include:
- Mineral extraction – largely sourced from the mineral-rich north, including the territories and northern parts of British Columbia and Alberta. Potentially, some materials processing could also be incorporated in these regions.
- Advanced materials processing – conducted in the Calgary-Edmonton corridor, which is well equipped with industrial processing skills and infrastructure.
- Clean-tech innovation and battery manufacturing – with existing clean-tech, processing, and battery manufacturing facilities, the Vancouver area is well equipped to produce, innovate, and export batteries.
- Battery second life and recycling – the Kootenays already host a variety of materials expertise and recycling capabilities. A focus on battery circularity in this region could see remanufacturing for reuse as an additional component.
Each of the industrial clusters relies heavily on existing industry, infrastructure, and expertise, which means the regions are well suited to accommodate these new functions. However, more work is required to build out comprehensive regional development plans for further investments and developments.
Coordinating the vision
While this now provides a clear vision of the opportunities for Western Canada, it is evident that no one company, government, or organisation can achieve it on its own.
It will take a focused collective. A durable coalition of like-minded stakeholders that share this vision and contribute to seeing it through to fruition. Coordinated by an independent body mandated to engage companies, communities, rights holders, and governments, and develop the strategic actions to support the development of the clusters and integration into the larger hub.
Focused on advancing strategic developments, the coalition can help build strong partnerships and promote the advantages of the Western Canadian Battery Hub, driving further investments and enhancements. This will enable Canada to maximise the value of the resources in the west by creating additional economic opportunities in the value chain.
Making it happen
One of the many advantages of the collective hub approach is the ability to look broadly at the sector and determine where investments and developments can have the most significant impact. And there are many factors to consider, like the number of companies supported, addressing key gaps in the value chain, and advancing economic reconciliation. Essentially, the objective is to maximise the return on investment.
This requires identifying the specific needs within the hub, whether it is technology or processing capacity, or even infrastructure like roads and power, and determining the costs for those developments. This will enable the development of a project pipeline to plan, prioritise, and budget for the necessary investments with a long-term vision in mind.
This will also build a comprehensive business case for investors, demonstrating needs and positioning companies within the broader industry, helping to de-risk projects and attract much-needed capital. Further, it will demonstrate the opportunities for companies outside of the cluster to get involved, as well as other jurisdictions to partner on mutually beneficial solutions.
Now is the time
Through its considerable mineral wealth, Canada has much to offer the industries of the future, even beyond batteries and the energy transition. However, to capitalise on these opportunities, Canada needs to consider more than the minerals themselves and include value-added materials processing in our development plans and each subsequent step in the value chain through to production and recycling to fully capture the prospects ahead.
As Canada works to claim its stake in this quickly evolving space, it is critical to recognise that different regions of the country possess unique strengths and advantages, making some ideal for hosting specific segments of these emerging value chains. Leveraging the strengths of each region and moving forward in a coordinated and collaborative manner can allow Canada to develop complete value chains in an optimised manner that enhances their global competitiveness.
An ideal starting point for this effort is to initiate the development of a Western Canadian Battery Hub to coordinate and catalyse the development of a battery value chain across Western Canada. While it is evident the region possesses all the necessary pieces to form a complete battery ecosystem, to maximise this opportunity, the approach must be one with a collective vision and a systemic approach. Looking beyond individual projects and supporting broader ecosystem development will create a more strategic and sustainable value chain that can deliver long-term economic prosperity for the region and Canada as a whole.
Now is the time to take bold actions and seize these opportunities, and a collaborative approach will be critical to fully capitalising on these prospects and ensuring success.
Please note, this article will also appear in the 22nd edition of our quarterly publication.
