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Case Studies/Spot Lights

AVAC and Highmark Renewables are Turning Waste Into Energy

When it comes to bioWaste, Alberta is prolific. Whether it’s from farms or feedlots, Alberta produces most of Canada’s bioWastes and is home to 70 per cent of Canada’s feedlots. So it’s no surprise that a unique technology that turns bioMass into renewable bioGas would be developed here in Alberta.

Highmark Renewables sells technology and technology designs to renewable energy plants. Their technology transforms organic wastes from outdoor feedlots, food industry residues and municipal sewer waste into clean energy for powering homes and businesses. Growing Power L.P. is Highmark’s first large scale customer. Located near Vegreville, the Growing Power plant produces about 20 tonnes of premium bio-based fertilizer along with 24,000 kWh of green electricity daily — enough to meet the needs of 1,200 homes. In the near future, Growing Power plans to quintuple the amount of waste it processes and add another proprietary Highmark technology to produce environmentally friendly bioFuel.

“Where there’s waste, there’s opportunity,” explains Evan Chrapko, one of Highmark’s co-CEOs. “Some might say that Alberta is literally overflowing with opportunity.”

Even though their technology has already attracted international attention, Chrapko stresses that R&D never stops. ”Companies forget about feeding their R&D pipeline. You need to continually develop, enhance and refine your technology and try to make it obsolete with your own new inventions and know-how. Our work with AVAC has a lot to do with what’s next and framing what’s sensible as we advance Highmark’s intellectual property.”

Chrapko and his brother Shane joined the Kotelko family in running Highmark almost three years ago. Since then, he has worked extensively with AVAC and has found the experience to be “nothing short of refreshing. It’s fantastic to work with a group of people who understand that you don’t have to go to the far corners of the world to find good ideas. AVAC ‘gets’ that there is world class talent and ideas at home, and that they need nurturing to get onto the world stage.”

Chrapko has also been impressed with AVAC’s flexibility. ”The nature of R&D is unpredictable. What comes out the other end of the pipe is almost always different than what you expected. That seems to surprise conventional lenders, which makes no sense because if you knew what was coming out the other end then you wouldn’t call it research. AVAC gets that. And they let you adapt and adjust accordingly so that your end result is even more successful.”