Bluesphere Ventures Inc. has plans to develop approximately 200 megawatts (MW) of energy storage projects in Canada and another 200 MW in the U.S., aimed at bolstering grids as more solar power generation comes onstream.

Based in New York City, Bluesphere operates as a sustainability startup incubator, seed investor and developer of battery energy storage systems.

The company plans to start with dozens of five MW energy storage projects in Toronto and New York City.

Co-founder and chairman Shidan Gouran, a Canadian technology entrepreneur and CEO of merchant bank Gulf Pearl Ltd., said energy storage will become a critical technology as electricity demand ramps up and intermittent energy sources like solar produce more power.

“To do this in a way that’s sustainable and meeting energy demands in an efficient way, you need batteries on the grid, there is no way around that,” he said in an interview with Sustainable Biz Canada.

From carbon credits to clean energy

Since its founding in early 2022 as a carbon credit services company, Bluesphere has pivoted to supporting the renewable energy sector and upcoming companies in cleantech and climate tech.

“We quickly realized it’s just not that exciting of a business,” Gouran said about the carbon credit industry. He lost his faith in voluntary carbon credit markets (“It’s just not a good way of managing things”) and was not happy with the quality of projects.

But he did not give up on his “passion for making the world a better place” by continuing to back sustainability innovators.

To date, the company has invested approximately $5 million into startups with its partners, fostering and funding solutions such as a carbon credit verification platform named Pure Sky Registry, solid-state battery technology, and carbon removal technology firm SkyHarvest.

An early success story from its portfolio is a carbon analytics firm that was sold to a Canadian company.

Its development company Bluesphere Power is a priority, aimed at profiting from a surge in renewable electricity and the resulting need for a stable energy source.

Bluesphere Power’s batteries

Electricity consumption is projected to skyrocket in Ontario because of a rising population, electrification, electric vehicles and projected new manufacturing facilities and data centres.

To meet this demand, the provincial government put out a 7,500 MW power procurement in December 2024 that opens a door for renewable energy, plus options for obtaining long-duration energy storage and small-scale solar installations. Earlier last year, it procured 1,784 MW of energy storage capacity.

Batteries like the ones Bluesphere Power are planning to develop fit in nicely with the government’s goal, as they can reserve power from a variety of sources (renewables, nuclear, natural gas) and release it on demand, complementing the intermittency of solar.

The expectation local, smaller-sized solar installations will be more widely adopted is another factor for the company, as it aligns with Bluesphere’s expectation that smaller, not bigger, will be the pathway for solar energy to succeed.

“Large deployments are not the way that you’re going to see this space evolve,” Gouran said. “It’s really something that can be done in a very scalable way on very, very small scales and built up from there.”

Bluesphere Power plans to use batteries from Tesla that will store electricity generated at off-peak hours from the grid and release the power at peak demand to contracted utility companies.

The company has commitments for the real estate for its projects and is developing sites to the notice-to-proceed phase. The systems are scheduled to operate in less than two years, Gouran said, and will be ready for sale in the next 18 months.

Each five MW project will be worth approximately $7 million to $8 million when operational.

Once finished, Gouran said Bluesphere Power plans to sell most of the battery systems to organizations such as private equity firms or energy developers.

As for New York City, the deployments will be in boroughs such as the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens.

Future markets and a plan for a listing

Currently concentrating on Ontario and New York State, Gouran said Bluesphere is open to developing energy storage systems in other jurisdictions with community solar infrastructure. New Jersey and Pennsylvania are two states the company plans to expand into, Eddie Soleymani, co-founder and CEO of Bluesphere and serial entrepreneur, said during the interview.

Ontario and the east coast will be Bluesphere’s priorities in Canada, Gouran said.

Bluesphere also intends to be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange later this year.

Though a palpable hostility to renewable and clean energy has engulfed the U.S. since President Donald Trump has taken office, Gouran is finding bright spots. The hunger for electrons is everywhere in the U.S. and solar will be a popular choice for electricity because it is so cheap, he said — and that demand will need batteries.

He is also finding state-level programs for solar energy are persisting and the U.S. federal government has not raised many objections to solar. Plus, Canada’s governments are broadly more supportive, always giving it opportunity in Gouran’s home country.

“Irrespective of what people think about climate change, there is a need for energy," Gouran said.