These clean tech startups launched in Calgary, but most of their sales are in the U.S.

A cluster of clean tech firms that got their start in Calgary are growing their operations south of the border as a proposed policy shift in the United States provides a big growth opportunity.

Companies like Westgen Technologies, which launched in Calgary in 2019 and now has about 100 employees, were founded in response to a Canadian push to reduce harmful methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.

In 2018, the federal government introduced regulations to reduce oil and gas methane, while also increasing the amount of funding toward developing related technologies to detect, monitor, avoid and reduce methane. Those moves gave rise to dozens of startups seeking to find solutions.

Westgen specializes in providing remote electricity and compressed air to oil and gas well sites, reducing the need for methane to power valves and pumps, which is eventually released into the air.

But the company, like other similar Canadian-born clean tech companies, says more of its clients are now American.

The U.S. had lagged its northern neighbour on methane regulations for the oilpatch, but that's changing. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing rules that would surpass the level of stringency in Canada.

As a result, many oil and gas producers south of the border are making investments to cut down on their methane emissions to prepare for the regulatory change.

Two-thirds of Westgen's sales are already in the U.S. and that will grow closer to 80 per cent in the next few years, said Connor O'Shea, Westgen's CEO. 

"Having that certainty that [the new regulations] are coming is creating a whole bunch of action with some of the more proactive oil and gas producers," he said.

"We have a whole bunch of peers in the city who have done similar things in a similar period of time." 

Westgen received $1.3 million in funding from the Canadian and Alberta governments since 2020.

Qube Technologies has collected grant funding from those same governments to develop its software and hardware that detects, measures and records methane emissions at industrial sites.

The company started in 2018 and manufactures its equipment at a site near downtown Calgary. It says sales south of the border account for about two-thirds of its business and recently opened an office and warehouse in Texas.

"We've definitely seen an improvement in terms of the sales opportunities down in the U.S.," said Eric Wen, Qube's chief operating officer.