Developer Convergent Energy & Power’s first projects out of a joint venture (JV) with Shell have come online, while GE Renewable Energy touted the imminent implementation of the country’s ‘first hybrid electric gas turbine’ project.
Business division Shell New Energies said in May this year that it had spotted opportunities in Canada linked to the Province of Ontario’s policies that reward large users of energy that reduce their demand for grid energy at peak times and created the JV with Convergent Energy & Power, offering the latter’s services and products to its C&I customers.
The fossil fuels major announced an initial 21MWh of projects at Shell Canada Products production facilities, one at Brockville, a motor oils and lubricants plants and Sarnia, an oil refinery. A 10MW behind-the-meter (BTM) system deployed as part of that 21MWh is currently tied with another Convergent project as North America’s largest behind-the-meter battery project, the company claimed.
Energy-Storage.news has reported on dozens of megawatts of commercial and industrial (C&I) facilities’ energy storage projects in Ontario, with policy drivers including the Global Adjustment Charge (GAC). As early as 2016, we heard from the assembled industry at an event hosted by the Canadian Embassy in London that a long-term policy remit to provide “clean, affordable” electricity was the foundation of the province’s market. A more recent notable example is the 48MW / 144MWh Customer Energy Management (CMEa) programme battery energy storage project awarded to tech provider Fluence by a local electricity distribution company. In that instance, 357 businesses will be able to benefit from shared savings of around C$5 million (US$3.76 million) per year between them using a single, large-scale battery system to reduce peak demand. Convergent sent a reminder with its latest release that Canadian non-profit Fraser Institute found electricity prices in Ontario are 65% higher for large consumers of electricity in the province than elsewhere in Canada. Convergent itself now has 40MW in operation in Ontario, the company said.
Convergent, which was bought up in summer this year by infrastructure investment group Energy Capital Partners (see here to read an exclusive post-takeover interview with Convergent CEO Johannes Ritterhausen) is going to operate the 21MWh of energy storage, reducing the Shell facilities’ draw from the grid, using Convergent Energy & Power’s proprietary PEAK IQ asset management platform.
While the use of low emissions energy storage technology to ease the economic pains of operating a fossil fuels business may be a little hard to accept for some, they are nonetheless an effective showcase that energy consumption at such facilities could be reduced by a third using energy storage technology, as Convergent and Shell claim will be the case here.
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