Watt It Takes Hydrostor Co-Founder and CEO Curtis VanWalleghem
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Feb 26, 2026 Curtis VanWalleghem, co-founder and CEO of Hydrostor, leads a long-duration compressed-air energy storage company using underground flooded rock caverns. He discusses the tech pivot from underwater balloons to caverns, the grind of early fundraising and near-death moments, building an IPP with project finance, and landing major contracts and strategic investors.
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Quitting For A Naive Bet On Compressed Air
- Curtis left Bruce Power to join Cam and start Hydrostor after cobbling together friends, family, and an embedded-executive grant to fund the early payroll.
- He mortgaged his house, took no salary, and relied on Deloitte keeping his benefits as an exit option while they chased the idea.
The Underwater Balloon Pilot That Taught Them Physics
- Hydrostor's early tech used 30ft balloons anchored ~240m underwater to store compressed air and ran a Toronto Island 1MW pilot built by the founders and small team.
- They sank multiple structures, even filed an insurance claim, learned hands-on marine deployment, and tested for five years.
Why Offshore Balloons Were A Dead End
- Offshore balloons failed because air's low density and long-distance pipe friction make marine installation and maintenance prohibitively expensive at megawatt scale.
- That physics constraint pushed the team to rethink storage medium and site, not abandon compressed air fundamentals.