ACET collaborates with communities seeking to accelerate their energy transformation by co-creating equitable and resilient clean energy solutions that create new economic opportunities and strengthen local autonomy.
Building community resilience
By developing locally integrated and diverse energy systems, ACET boosts community resilience against extreme weather, supply disruptions and energy price fluctuations. Innovations in technology and smart infrastructure accelerate this transformation by making energy systems future-ready.
Northern voices lead energy conversations
A first-of-its-kind effort to understand the energy aspirations of communities across northern BC has sparked new conversations that will help shape the next decade of clean energy development in the province.
The power of waves
CBC Producer Camille Vernet travelled to Nootka Island with UVic researchers to learn how the power of wave energy could help bring the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation back home to the remote ancestral village of Yuquot.
Photo: Radio-Canada | Camille Verne
Fostering sustainable energy transformation
ACET Executive Director Curran Crawford (left) believes an interdisciplinary approach is crucial to implementing sustainable energy systems that are reliable, cost effective and community driven.
One giant leap closer to net zero
Learn how ACET will support clean energy transformations in remote and Indigenous communities.
Vuntut Gwitchin Government and YukonU train Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation citizens on community energy systems in Old Crow.
Photo: Yukon University
Research areas
Low-carbon & offshore renewable energy tech
Harness, use and store renewables including wave, tidal, hydrogen and offshore wind energy
Distributed systems and hybrid microgrids
Develop advanced microgrid controls, systems integration and management
Green hydrogen and e-fuels
Develop low-cost, safe and clean hydrogen and other e-fuel vectors
Business & finance innovation
Innovate finance and business models, and explore social enterprise potential
Integrated energy systems
Complex systems, place-based transitions, worldviews, policy interactions, Indigeneity
Scale-up and acceleration
Create transformation strategies scalable to communities worldwide
Academic partners
- Council of the Haida Nation
- Malahat First Nation
- Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation
- Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation Government
- Dease River Development Corporation
- Barkley Project Group Ltd.
- BC Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy
- BC Hydro
- BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation
- BC Sustainable Energy Association
- Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS)
- Centre for Ocean Applied Sustainable Technologies (COAST)
- South Island Prosperity Partnership
- Indigenous Prosperity Centre
- Rainhouse Manufacturing Canada Ltd.
- Scale Collaborative
- Capital Regional District (Greater 51吃瓜)
- City of 51吃瓜
- City of Saanich
- Yukon Government
- Yukon Energy Corporation
- ATCO Electric Yukon
- Alacrity
- Foresight Canada
- BMT
- Pembina Institute
- Marine Renewables Canada
- Ocean Networks Canada (ONC)
- University of Rhode Island (US)
- Pacific Marine Energy Center (US)
- Sustainable Marine Energy (UK)
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Austria)
- Green Digital Finance Alliance (Switzerland)
- Social Ocean Energy Project (Switzerland)
- CorPower Ocean (Sweden)
- Waves4Power (Sweden)
This research was undertaken thanks in part to funding from the .
Institute for Integrated Energy Systems at the 51吃瓜 (IESVic)
Accelerating Community Energy Transformation (ACET) is an initiative of the Institute for Integrated Energy Systems at the 51吃瓜 (IESVic). For more than 30 years, IESVic has developed and advanced the most innovative interdisciplinary clean energy technologies. Their mission is to chart feasible pathways to sustainable energy systems through the development of new technologies, processes, and systems.
Videos
Land acknowledgement
We acknowledge and respect the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Xʷsepsəm/Esquimalt) Peoples on whose territory the university stands, the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples, the Musqueam people, the fourteen Yukon First Nations, Atikamekw and other Indigenous People on which ACET partner institutions stand, whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.