Revolutionizing renewable energy with its scalable modular dams

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[00:35] SPEAKER_02: costs. Welcome to Canada's Podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Canada's podcast. It's the
[00:45] SPEAKER_02: Atlantic Canada version and we got awesome guests as always and today is no different from that.
[00:53] SPEAKER_02: I wanted to introduce you to Mr. Andrew Murray. Andrew is the founder of CEO of Asline Renewables,
[01:01] SPEAKER_02: a PEI-based revolutionary company who is revolutionizing renewable energy with scalable,
[01:09] SPEAKER_02: modular dams designed to bring Canada's 50,000 historical hydro sites back to the life with
[01:17] SPEAKER_02: modern technology. Andrew, this is very interesting because one is, how do you know there's 50,000
[01:25] SPEAKER_02: historical hydro sites? I thought you'd say that probably easy when you get rid of them.
[01:29] SPEAKER_02: Google shoots, but why dams? How does it relate back to you who you are as Andrew Murray?
[01:41] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a great question, Rivers. First, thanks very much for inviting me. I've been looking
[01:45] SPEAKER_03: forward to this as I told you and we're really excited to share this story with Canadians.
[01:50] SPEAKER_03: Let me start with the dams. This is an opportunity that I think most of the country is just not aware of.
[01:57] SPEAKER_03: I certainly wasn't when we embarked on it. We have found that throughout, like from coast to coast,
[02:05] SPEAKER_03: there are numerous kind of medium-scale hydro sites that have been sort of decommissioned,
[02:11] SPEAKER_03: kind of abandoned in the 40s, 50s and 60s as the country moved collectively towards larger
[02:17] SPEAKER_03: hydro installations and cross-border power brokerage that we know to. If we think of hydro in Canada
[02:25] SPEAKER_03: right now, we're thinking of massive, massive installs, things like Muscat Falls, you know,
[02:31] SPEAKER_03: in Illinois and Quebec. We're all kind of familiar with this, but what we don't know or what often we
[02:36] SPEAKER_03: forget is the sites that powered our important communities, our towns that became the major cities.
[02:43] SPEAKER_03: These are sites that were medium-scale, used to how's water mills and things like that.
[02:49] SPEAKER_03: And they were all decommissioned when we started building these massive hydro stations.
[02:54] SPEAKER_03: So, as in this mission here, we're building, we have built, we design and manufacture and P.E.I.
[03:00] SPEAKER_03: a modular hydro dam system. That's a medium-scale. So, these things, they power about 20 homes per site,
[03:09] SPEAKER_03: and they're built to fit existing infrastructure. They're built to fit the infrastructure that was left
[03:14] SPEAKER_03: behind when those tens of thousands of dams were retired, right? Very cool. Kind of reminds me of the
[03:25] SPEAKER_02: decommission of the worst system along the riverway system for just voting. And so why?
[03:33] SPEAKER_02: So why did for you, what's it, you know, there's always that passion for a journey that an entrepreneur
[03:40] SPEAKER_02: goes on, this podcast is a vote entrepreneur. So why is it important to you? Why is it fun for you?
[03:47] SPEAKER_03: Why is it passionate for you? I mean, it started to something that was naturally fun for me.
[03:52] SPEAKER_03: And I want to say, Canadian entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in this country that led me down this road.
[03:58] SPEAKER_03: You know, I started as a tech founder about 15 years ago. I was supported by some of our great institutions
[04:05] SPEAKER_03: in this country, real ventures, a lot of groups in Toronto. And we built great tech products, right?
[04:12] SPEAKER_03: I went through founder fuel as an accelerator. The skills that I picked up going through those
[04:17] SPEAKER_03: those steps in my career kind of gave me this knowledge to look at an opportunity like this and
[04:24] SPEAKER_03: really realize the ability to one like build minimum viable products, garage scale kind of iteration.
[04:32] SPEAKER_03: And then to have a keen nose for scale, right? And so where this really became a passion for me is
[04:40] SPEAKER_03: you know, understanding the opportunity and then and the fact that just as kind of a tech entrepreneur
[04:46] SPEAKER_03: as someone who has an agile mindset who likes to like to make things, right? We could tackle that
[04:55] SPEAKER_03: opportunity and that it could really achieve an economy of scale that you know, if we if we did
[05:01] SPEAKER_03: take those initial startup steps, right, that that our entrepreneurial community knows so well,
[05:06] SPEAKER_03: the impact that this could have for Canadians would be tremendous. So that's where it became
[05:12] SPEAKER_03: a passion project for me. Like we started doing this on one single dam in rural PEI and it worked,
[05:19] SPEAKER_03: you know, and then we realized that there were about 170 of those sites across the province where
[05:25] SPEAKER_03: we could apply this. And just there in that one kind of provincial like sample, the energy output
[05:34] SPEAKER_03: is upwards of 20,000 megawatt hours per year. That's a massive chunk, you know, so again, like we
[05:41] SPEAKER_03: go back to that garage level, that bench that bench scale iteration when you can get that right.
[05:48] SPEAKER_03: And then you can you can have a keen eye for market fit. It gets really exciting really fast.
[05:55] SPEAKER_02: That is so cool. So does a neighborhood you sit up to 20 homes? Who's your customer?
[06:03] SPEAKER_03: So the customer right now is government. What we're working with provincial governments across
[06:09] SPEAKER_03: the country. We started with PEI. So we built a PEI power purchase agreement there with the
[06:15] SPEAKER_03: island so that the the island can purchase that power distributed to the to islanders to people
[06:21] SPEAKER_03: across the province. But the same model is available and works well in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
[06:28] SPEAKER_03: Newfoundland, Ontario, Alberta all the way across. So the same model that we've put in place in
[06:35] SPEAKER_03: PEI, we want to replicate that with the other provinces. So as then just it's really new news,
[06:42] SPEAKER_03: we're just open conversations with Nova Scotia, New Brunswick. We do the same thing with Newfoundland.
[06:49] SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I mean the primary customers government. From there, there are some other opportunities.
[06:54] SPEAKER_03: When we think about modular hydro, when we start taking this concept of large scale and pulling it
[07:01] SPEAKER_03: down, making it more accessible, we can do the same thing for industry, we can do it for title,
[07:07] SPEAKER_03: we look at concrete plants across the country that use a huge amount of water flow.
[07:12] SPEAKER_03: This approach allows us to recycle a lot of that loss power and bring all of those industries closer
[07:20] SPEAKER_02: to net zero over time. I love it. So talk to me about the first six months of your business
[07:28] SPEAKER_02: as it relates to customer acquisition. So when we're interested in you can peak on the ground,
[07:35] SPEAKER_02: what's happening in your life in that first six months to a year?
[07:39] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, I'll tell you, remember it's a little different like starting to build a power
[07:45] SPEAKER_03: company, an energy company in this country. I've been through the cycles of building,
[07:52] SPEAKER_03: building apps, building web tech stuff like that and going out into the market,
[07:56] SPEAKER_03: getting that first customer really like hitting the phones and all that stuff.
[08:00] SPEAKER_03: I live by that, like I'm passionate about this. This was a little bit different. I mean,
[08:06] SPEAKER_03: we had some major environmental considerations to take care of. We had to work closely with
[08:14] SPEAKER_03: groups like the Department of Fisheries and Oceans very closely with local indigenous groups
[08:20] SPEAKER_03: to understand the history of these waterways and what's deeply important to them.
[08:26] SPEAKER_03: We had to work with fishermen, local communities, municipalities, all sorts to really get the
[08:34] SPEAKER_03: communities on board. So while there was a major stuff, right after we figured out that this was
[08:40] SPEAKER_03: possible, we started pulling together advisory groups that represented all of those different
[08:46] SPEAKER_03: categories to say, can we do this? And how can we best collaborate with you? So honestly,
[08:54] SPEAKER_03: we talk about three years of discussions after we had pulled together an MVP to build the support
[09:03] SPEAKER_03: within the community and within government to then say, okay, we can launch a new energy
[09:08] SPEAKER_03: company that's focused on hydro, focused on water that's running through Canada.
[09:13] SPEAKER_03: And we can scale it properly so that we can have an equitable business. Yeah.
[09:17] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's really cool. So what talked to us about your team that works with you
[09:23] SPEAKER_02: to help you get to that, including partners that you want to make a reference to?
[09:28] SPEAKER_03: That would be great. Absolutely. So right off the bat, we built an engineering team
[09:34] SPEAKER_03: that was represented by a great consulting group in Charlottetown P.E.I.
[09:40] SPEAKER_03: called Coals and Associates. So this is an engineering that covers everything from sustainability,
[09:46] SPEAKER_03: a lot of work in environment. And they had a huge amount of experience within kind of
[09:50] SPEAKER_03: government, intersecting with government, building these big projects. Doug Coals was an early
[09:57] SPEAKER_03: partner in the business. He came in as an advisor to meet personally, just as a great support
[10:02] SPEAKER_03: system and kind of a coach. And Doug kind of brought me through the major engineering
[10:08] SPEAKER_03: feats that we're going to have to go into this. So that was that was a major step.
[10:12] SPEAKER_03: Second to that, like right away, we got into we built an advisory group of local indigenous.
[10:18] SPEAKER_03: And this was our environmental stuff. So before we started filling out those applications with
[10:23] SPEAKER_03: the Department of Environment or DFO, we brought these guys together to say,
[10:30] SPEAKER_03: what are the what are the pitfall, what are the roadblocks that we should expect? How can you
[10:34] SPEAKER_03: help it? How can we work together right to get around that stuff? The MIGMAC and Federalist
[10:41] SPEAKER_03: Sea of Prince Edward Island, the Avigwood First Nations groups, like we had some just incredible
[10:46] SPEAKER_03: champions in there. And you know, Rivers, there was something special in that early step, which was
[10:52] SPEAKER_03: we went to them first, like we sat down and was able to get fresh, knowing really nothing
[11:01] SPEAKER_03: and built a great relationship that you know. Today, when we look for new locations in the country,
[11:07] SPEAKER_03: where can we put this, what would be a great candidate site for a new dam?
[11:13] SPEAKER_03: We call in those first nations groups because they know the land so well, right? Yeah,
[11:18] SPEAKER_03: it was really phenomenal. And then from there, I mean, the support gathered, we built great
[11:24] SPEAKER_03: partnership with partnerships with watersheds with fisheries groups and communities.
[11:31] SPEAKER_03: And then eventually got to government. That was sort of the last step. And I gotta say,
[11:36] SPEAKER_03: I mean, the PTI government has been an excellent partner. They've entertained, you know,
[11:43] SPEAKER_03: our questions and sort of the baby steps that we needed to take in order to make this real.
[11:49] SPEAKER_03: And I couldn't give them more respect. Yeah, they certainly gave it to me. So that's how it started.
[11:56] SPEAKER_03: And now today, the major partners who are coming into the projects are universities.
[12:03] SPEAKER_03: Seriously. Yeah, I mean, this is a bit of a lean start-up move to be honest. The universities in
[12:11] SPEAKER_03: Atlanta Canada for sure. I'm sure in the rest of the country as well. But in Atlanta Canada and
[12:17] SPEAKER_03: the Maritimes, our universities have caler programs to get their students engaged with early
[12:23] SPEAKER_03: companies like this to help us do our modeling, our testing, making sure that we're crossing our
[12:32] SPEAKER_03: Ts and dotting our eyes. So instead of me jumping into the market and hiring a bunch of senior
[12:39] SPEAKER_03: engineers, for example, we built student groups that could answer these, but tackle these problems
[12:44] SPEAKER_03: with us. And I mean, we got really lucky now that the company is maturing. A lot of those students
[12:51] SPEAKER_03: are coming into the marketplace and sitting down with us to talk about careers.
[12:57] SPEAKER_02: The size of the dams, if you could just give our audience a perspective as to what it is that
[13:08] SPEAKER_02: you're ultimately outputting to put it onto the river system, water-waste system.
[13:14] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, the dam configuration, obviously, this is my baby. This is a masterpiece.
[13:22] SPEAKER_03: Damns are very small. I'll walk you through kind of a description of it and I'll try it and
[13:26] SPEAKER_03: stop me and ask questions because I'm still trying to get this down, you know.
[13:31] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, let's go. I'll just throw a picture on the screen.
[13:33] SPEAKER_02: You said a weed started. Don't worry about the project.
[13:37] SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna urge you to talk.
[13:39] SPEAKER_03: You got it. So the dam, first of all, is a passive collection system, meaning, you know,
[13:46] SPEAKER_03: we're working with existing sites where you've got a whole pile of water falling over an edge down,
[13:51] SPEAKER_03: you know, a decent elevate of maybe 10 feet. So these sites, again, like these used to be the
[13:57] SPEAKER_03: sites of water mills and stuff. Those were yanked out in the 50s and the 60s. And now it's just kind
[14:03] SPEAKER_03: of a concrete culvert that each province sort of installed to hold that water system in place.
[14:10] SPEAKER_03: So we fit in a catch basin into each one of these things. A catch is 100% of the water that's
[14:17] SPEAKER_03: falling over it. And then it funnels it down into four to six modular turbines. And this is where
[14:24] SPEAKER_03: the modular nature of the project really comes into play and creates a ton of value.
[14:30] SPEAKER_03: All of that water, and there's quite a bit in this country falling over those little installations,
[14:35] SPEAKER_03: those dams, gets collected, pushed down into a set of individual turbines that are about
[14:41] SPEAKER_03: the size of a beer keg. Right? So again, moving from that massive scale hydro system down to
[14:49] SPEAKER_03: something more accessible, you've got four turbines that, you know, you can put in the back in the
[14:54] SPEAKER_03: trunk of a corolla, right? And you can, you can, these are accessible at the top of the water level.
[15:05] SPEAKER_03: So it all catches up the top. It possibly kind of goes over. There's no suction. There's no
[15:12] SPEAKER_03: disruption of kind of the ecosystem there. It's the same water flow that's happening right now.
[15:17] SPEAKER_03: They funnel into these four or six turbines. Those turbines pull the water down through props.
[15:23] SPEAKER_03: Which turns the turns these motors. And then that's fed through conduit right into into the ground
[15:31] SPEAKER_03: on shore. And then underground it goes up to a power pole and right onto the grid.
[15:37] SPEAKER_03: The beauty of having those those small turbines create all this energy as opposed to one big system
[15:45] SPEAKER_03: is we can play with them. And again, like that startup mentality
[15:51] SPEAKER_03: really factored into the design here. Because I can have, you know, our group or a group of students go
[15:56] SPEAKER_03: out and say, well, you know, I think that we can optimize with these turbines a little bit. We can
[16:02] SPEAKER_03: tinker with them and make some make some small changes. And so you can imagine on a single site
[16:09] SPEAKER_03: that's housing for turbines, we can we can maintain them. We can play with them. We can horse race
[16:14] SPEAKER_03: them to see it to make the little changes and see if one does better than the other. We can really
[16:20] SPEAKER_03: iterate and test. So that's made it really really easy to easy to optimize easy to work with
[16:30] SPEAKER_03: and easy to grow. The other thing that it does is it's such a light system right that we can take
[16:37] SPEAKER_03: them out or put them in very easily, you know, without a without a massive amount of risk to the
[16:43] SPEAKER_03: company without a massive investment. And so for example, you know, if we have a community come in
[16:49] SPEAKER_03: that's very interested in having these on both running in their community. But they're concerned
[16:56] SPEAKER_03: about the amount of power it's going to make or, you know, is it going to, who knows, they're
[17:01] SPEAKER_03: all sorts of concerns with like a new system like this. This thing is agile enough that we can put
[17:07] SPEAKER_03: it in, run it for four months. And then, you know, if it's not working, well, we can take it out
[17:12] SPEAKER_03: without destroying the business. You see, right. It just sets us up for success.
[17:20] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that's brilliant. You're still in that startup space. So it kind of eliminates that
[17:27] SPEAKER_02: sense of risk of what if this doesn't work. Don't worry about it. We'll just take it out. A big deal.
[17:33] SPEAKER_02: It's just a loss on the way. For these, you said the government was your customer reason.
[17:40] SPEAKER_02: Partnerly municipal. Is it provincial or the feds are all three?
[17:45] SPEAKER_03: It's a it's provincial for the most part. You've seen it, especially with some of the, you know,
[17:53] SPEAKER_03: the carbon incentives, the net zero initiatives, things like this, the provinces in Canada have
[17:58] SPEAKER_03: phenomenal programs to support this stuff. And in fact, we're piggybacking on solar and wind,
[18:05] SPEAKER_03: right? When solar and wind came into, I guess, the renewable mainstream in Canada,
[18:14] SPEAKER_03: governments, governments responded. They built programs to support, you know, private entrepreneurs
[18:19] SPEAKER_03: like me coming and innovating the space. So what we can do now with the, I mean, basically,
[18:27] SPEAKER_03: I'm saying it's already proven. So we can say, look, you did this great deal to support the wind
[18:31] SPEAKER_03: farm over here. We would like the same thing. We'll put these in ourselves. You guys buy the
[18:37] SPEAKER_03: power in the same way you buy it from solar farms or wind farms, you know, we're not reinventing
[18:42] SPEAKER_03: it that way. So it's really good. The other thing that I'll say, I mean, it's, we have one,
[18:50] SPEAKER_03: and it's a bit, it's a bit tongue in cheek, but I've got to mention it because I'm, I'm really
[18:54] SPEAKER_03: excited about this. And we, the nature of hydro rivers is, it's extremely stable. It's a very
[19:05] SPEAKER_03: stable source of renewable energy because that water's flowing 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,
[19:13] SPEAKER_03: right? Very minimal variability. So you compare that to wind and solar. It makes a huge difference,
[19:21] SPEAKER_03: you know, in Canada, obviously, we have windy days and not windy days. We have sunny days and cloudy
[19:26] SPEAKER_03: days. And so the energy that's generated from those two categories is quite unpredictable. It's
[19:33] SPEAKER_03: quite spiky, right? And this, it turns out, it's very difficult for large-scale grids, you know,
[19:42] SPEAKER_03: these grids that were put in place a long, long time ago to manage that kind of variability.
[19:49] SPEAKER_03: Hydro, on the other hand, is a very predictable, very stable and consistent power source. So, you
[19:57] SPEAKER_03: know, every time that we put in another one of these dams, the energy goes straight onto the grid.
[20:02] SPEAKER_03: It doesn't, doesn't disrupt anybody. It doesn't, doesn't scare anyone at the power company. You know,
[20:08] SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's really, really friendly to our existing systems. So I think that's, that's very
[20:14] SPEAKER_03: important to mention, you know, every single dam that goes in, the amount of renewable energy in
[20:19] SPEAKER_03: this country goes up a little bit and a little bit and a little bit. Days there. It doesn't go like
[20:23] SPEAKER_03: this, right? Right, right. And it's an important part of the story. Yeah, that's very cool. So for those
[20:29] SPEAKER_02: of us that are, you know, fights when it comes to damning them and so on, how do you connect the
[20:37] SPEAKER_02: energy that is generated with the grid? How does that work? So you need a, you need a specific type
[20:44] SPEAKER_03: of transformer. And so, and these exist all over, all over the country. So typical power pole,
[20:51] SPEAKER_03: you're just going to have some equipment to kind of move those power lines along. But every once
[20:57] SPEAKER_03: in a while, you'll see a transformer there. And those transformers are able to accept incoming power
[21:03] SPEAKER_03: or balance power. And so it's, again, it's not really different infrastructure than what you would
[21:11] SPEAKER_03: need for residential solar. We have great programs in Canada to accept kind of surplus solar from
[21:18] SPEAKER_03: a home. So you have a large house in a particularly sunny area and you're capturing a lot of sunlight
[21:24] SPEAKER_03: generating more power than you may need. You can put that power actually back onto the grid.
[21:29] SPEAKER_03: And the government will purchase that from you, right? Yeah. Yeah. The system being kind of
[21:35] SPEAKER_03: in between, you know, a residential system and a larger scale power output kind of gets to
[21:41] SPEAKER_03: piggyback on that as well and just say, well, I mean, look, we'll just plug into this. You know,
[21:45] SPEAKER_02: don't worry about it. I love it. I love it. There's all kinds of examples of that happening
[21:51] SPEAKER_02: already on another tech sector. But tell me, what do you do to hang up with the, with the,
[21:59] SPEAKER_02: the non part of your world, the non company part? What do you do to keep busy?
[22:04] SPEAKER_02: Look after the fun side of your life. This is fine. You get my point. What do you do?
[22:10] SPEAKER_03: It's a good question. It's a good question for entrepreneurs, you know.
[22:14] SPEAKER_03: Yeah. And it's got a lot of different answers. It's, yeah. I mean, I, um, I have a real affinity
[22:21] SPEAKER_03: for building projects. This is, this is not my first company and not my last. Um, I've built a,
[22:29] SPEAKER_03: I honestly spend a lot of downtime building. Still, I do a lot of e-commerce projects.
[22:35] SPEAKER_03: A lot of kind of board advisory stuff like that. Like I really, I love the entrepreneurship
[22:41] SPEAKER_03: community that we have here. Right. All the time in there. Um, right. You know, doing stuff like
[22:48] SPEAKER_03: this with you right now, like this is, this is making my day, man. Yeah, great. That's been
[22:54] SPEAKER_03: good. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's a lot of that. Um, anyway, yeah. Ever since, ever since my first
[23:01] SPEAKER_03: company in Montreal, um, I've been, I've been really stuck on this and I'm always looking for
[23:08] SPEAKER_02: something. Yeah. Well, it's, it's great. I have one of my favorite entrepreneurs that
[23:13] SPEAKER_02: code quote that he said, it's not work life balance. It's all just, it's all just life is where it
[23:19] SPEAKER_02: is. And so there's nothing to be apologetic, but spending a lot of time doing what you love.
[23:25] SPEAKER_02: That's, that's all good. Like, Andrew, how do people get in touch with you and, uh,
[23:31] SPEAKER_03: and all the things that you're doing? Well, you know, it rivers the best way. Um, I'll, uh,
[23:37] SPEAKER_03: I'll include my personal email here, but um, the best way is to go to our website and,
[23:41] SPEAKER_03: you know, it's, it's been amazing. We've done a little bit of, uh, communications push over
[23:46] SPEAKER_03: the past little while. Um, you'd probably say we, we've had an incredible honor for a, come from
[23:52] SPEAKER_03: London, sort of spot lighting the company. Uh, and I can talk a little bit about that, but we had,
[23:57] SPEAKER_03: we had sort of a, a bit of a launch of the business very recently. And I've been so incredibly
[24:04] SPEAKER_03: inspired by the amount of the number of people who have come to the website, hit the contact
[24:10] SPEAKER_03: form and reached out with either just supportive words. Like, we've always thought about this in
[24:15] SPEAKER_03: Canada. It's really exciting to, um, you know, communities reaching out saying, I've got
[24:22] SPEAKER_03: 10 of these in my writing or in my, in my city, you know, could, could you have a look at
[24:29] SPEAKER_03: bridge water? Could you have a look at Peterborough? Could you, you know, et cetera? Um, so that's
[24:35] SPEAKER_03: the best way to get in touch. And in fact, it's, uh, it's been so incredible. We've had, um,
[24:42] SPEAKER_03: we've had a lot of inbound from outside of Canada as well. Um, one of these, uh, one of the
[24:50] SPEAKER_03: benefits of building hydro systems that are this kind of compact, this, this easy to understand
[24:56] SPEAKER_03: and install is, uh, they, they are pretty much the perfect size to power kind of rural communities.
[25:03] SPEAKER_03: And even developing communities, right? We had, uh, I'll tell you a story just from this morning.
[25:12] SPEAKER_03: Um, it's, it's because it was super inspiring to me and it's just top of mind. We had, uh, a message
[25:19] SPEAKER_03: come in from a town in Bosnia, um, who said, look, uh, they've got a, they have an interesting story
[25:27] SPEAKER_03: since the war in Bosnia. They haven't been able, they, they've had trouble kind of balancing their
[25:32] SPEAKER_03: grit. Um, so voltage stabilization is an issue out there. And so they, uh, moving to renewables,
[25:39] SPEAKER_03: they can't really adopt solar or wind because it's too unstable.
[25:43] SPEAKER_03: Right. Um, the only option is hydro. And, uh, so we went straight into exploring a, uh, an
[25:51] SPEAKER_03: export project with Bosnia to put as many units as we can on the ground and, uh, and make this
[25:57] SPEAKER_03: easy for them. So yeah, the website is the way to get to me. Um, and we really, what's
[26:04] SPEAKER_02: the spelling for the website is just as simple. Yeah, it's aslinrenewables.com.
[26:10] SPEAKER_02: Perfect. Perfect. And uh, LinkedIn, are you, uh, your fan of LinkedIn?
[26:16] SPEAKER_03: All over it. As you can see.
[26:19] SPEAKER_02: That's great. That's another way we can all get it all to you.
[26:23] SPEAKER_02: Well, listen, Andrew, this has been, uh, just a great, uh, interview, uh, conversation. I think more
[26:28] SPEAKER_02: than anything, but what, what you're doing, the PEI and I, like, congratulate you on your journey,
[26:34] SPEAKER_02: congratulate you on, uh, wanting to, uh, to get out there and not make it just a small project,
[26:41] SPEAKER_02: make it a project that's gonna impact thousands of thousands of people with different things.
[26:45] SPEAKER_02: So really cool. And doing it from, from PEI, can you just talk about the, uh, the PEI entrepreneurs,
[26:52] SPEAKER_02: ecosystem? Because although this is an Atlantic, Canada, Canada version, we like the knowledge going
[26:57] SPEAKER_02: on with the, uh, local, uh, start-up community, uh, and supporting what it is to your doing.
[27:03] SPEAKER_03: Absolutely. Yeah. We have a, we have a very vibrant startup community in PEI. Um, I'm really proud
[27:09] SPEAKER_03: of the work that the province, uh, innovation, PEI has done. The university has done a great job
[27:14] SPEAKER_03: of supporting entrepreneurs. Um, we have an incubator, accelerator here called the startup zone,
[27:20] SPEAKER_03: which is always full of people, always full of new ideas moving around.
[27:25] SPEAKER_03: We have our first, uh, our first local VC showed up on, on Prince Edward Island a couple,
[27:30] SPEAKER_03: a couple years ago called Island Tablet Partners. So yeah, I'm, look, I'm super proud to be here,
[27:37] SPEAKER_03: proud to be part of that community. And, uh, I hope this is a great feather in its hat, you know,
[27:43] SPEAKER_02: rivers? Yeah. Well, it sounds, uh, it sounds, uh, like you're on the right track, I'm thinking
[27:50] SPEAKER_02: to background and connections and so on. I suspect we'll just see in another success story from,
[27:56] SPEAKER_02: from you. So thank you so much for joining us on Canada's podcast today, Andrew. We really
[28:03] SPEAKER_02: appreciate it. Continue good luck. Thanks for reaching out. Have a great day. Yeah, absolutely. It's a
[28:09] SPEAKER_03: pleasure.