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THE BUSINESS OF NATION BUILDING: the future of our energy sector
ATCO chair & CEO Nancy Southern talks opportunity, technology and enterprise transformation
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or Nancy Southern, Chair & CEO of both ATCO and Canadian Utilities Limited, the collapse in energy prices, followed by a global pandemic and the movement toward cleaner forms of energy has catalyzed dramatic change for the company. Southern says the ability to respond to the changing environment has become part of ATCO’s DNA throughout its 75-year history. ATCO was started in 1947 by R.D. Southern, 17 at the time, and his father S.D. Southern, who each invested $2,000 to start Alberta Trailer Hire - providing relocatable accommodations to workers in Canada’s first oil boom. Through the ensuing decades, the company expanded internationally, working in more than 100 countries around the world. Along the way, it also diversified its operations – adding operational support services, natural gas and electric utilities, energy storage, power generation and ports and transportation to its base businesses. More recently, the company is eyeing low-carbon hydrogen as a catalyst for future growth and a potential game-changer for the Canadian energy industry and economy. “Some businesses see our current economic and social environment as the perfect storm,” Southern says. “We flip that narrative on its head to examine how it’s the perfect opportunity. With the technology, skills, expertise and infrastructure at the ready, we have the key tools to act on new ideas.” SEEDS OF CHANGE For ATCO, the latest seed of transformation was planted half a world away – in Australia. In 2011, the company acquired WA Gas Networks, the largest natural gas distribution utility in Western Australia. The acquisition would become an important stepping-stone in ATCO’s clean energy journey.
The country, similar in many ways to Canada, has been an important proving ground for introducing hydrogen to natural gas distribution systems. In 2019, with Australia’s National Hydrogen Strategy as its guide and start-up funding from the country’s renewable energy agency, ATCO was able to build and test a closed system that integrated natural gas, solar, battery storage and electrolysis to power a modular home.
ATCO’s Clean Energy Innovation Hub was developed to test new ways of using clean energy sources.
The knowledge ATCO gained in Australia is now being applied in its work with Suncor. In May, 2021, the companies announced their collaboration on a potential world-scale hydrogen project near Fort Saskatchewan, which would produce more than 300,000 tonnes of clean hydrogen annually. Once operational, the project would have the capacity to reduce CO2 emissions by more than two million tons per year, the equivalent of taking 450,000 cars off the road annually. BUSINESSINCALGARY.COM // BUSINESS IN CALGARY // MARCH 2022
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