Terrella Energy Systems

When I found out that Mission had a material fuel cell operation in town, I have to admit that I was confused.

A what?

What’s that?

I was forced to do a little bit of research of my own. 

Terrella Energy Systems is a developer of lightweight, corrosion resistant, and thermally efficient graphite structures for use in fuel cells, thermal products, and a variety of eco-friendly heat generating energy systems. Terrella’s forming methods for graphite allows unique shapes and features while taking full advantage of graphite’s superior properties that can out-perform metals with properties such as conductivity and corrosion resistance.

Basically… it’s the stuff that goes in a battery.

Recently, I spoke with John Kenna, president of Terrella Energy Systems. John began his career with Ballard Power Systems, which is a developer and manufactures of proton exchange membrane fuel cell products. Along the way, developed a fascination for material fuel cell. 

Terrella Energy Systems was on the horizon!

Mission was an attractive location for the start up of this new endeavour and John liked what our small community offered. Although he is predominantly based out of his Vancouver office now, John gave us some insight in to the decisions made to manufacture in Mission, an interesting community with much potential.

Mission has the West Coast Express, CP rail, the highway and the river for shipping. There is also the industrial bay close to other businesses that we work closely with.

Community Futures played an integral role in the start up of Terrella Energy Systems and to this day, they have maintained a close relationship. In the beginning, there were alone in their field, but now there are 8-10 different fuel cell companies throughout the Lower Mainland.

It was a struggle starting up and we worked hard to gain visibility,but our hard work paid off and now we are creating jobs and drawing in local talent from all over the Fraser Valley.

The onset of COVID-19 slowed the day to day activity of manufacturing down, which resulted in a loss of jobs. Terrell Energy Systems took advantage of some of the government programs and were fortunate enough not to lose any of their customers. 

With less manufacturing, the team has now been able to concentrate more of their time in to addressing things like utilizing technology to help clean up the environment. 

John is now putting emphasis on cleaner power and I think we all like the sound of that.