
Hydrostor Co-Founder and CEO Curtis VanWalleghem
From Watt It Takes by Emily Kirsch
February 26, 2026 · 1h 18m · Episode 96
About this episode
Curtis VanWalleghem discusses his journey to founding Hydrostor and the company's innovative approach to energy storage.
Curtis VanWalleghem is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hydrostor, a company that stores energy in underground rock caverns using compressed air and water, designed for ten hours or more of storage. In the conversation, Curtis walks through the path that led him to Hydrostor, from growing up in Ontario and studying engineering while playing varsity hockey, to a decade in global consulting, to confronting surplus power challenges at Bruce Power and deciding to build a company around compressed air energy storage. Founded in 2010, Hydrostor has raised over $550 million in equity, secured roughly $8 billion in revenue contracts, and is advancing a multi-gigawatt pipeline of long-duration storage projects across North America and Australia.
People in this episode
Host: Emily Kirsch
Guest: Curtis VanWalleghem
Topics covered
- energy storage
- compressed air
- entrepreneurship
- technology
- consulting
- power challenges
Keywords
- energy storage
- compressed air
- Hydrostor
- Curtis VanWalleghem
- Bruce Power
- entrepreneurship
- technology
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Hydrostor, Bruce Power
Places: Ontario
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