— Simon Irving“Energy storage is a technology that is proven and has been successful in other jurisdictions including California, Vermont, and Portland, but currently faces several significant barriers in Alberta. If successful, this project has the potential to demonstrate an innovative business case for storage in residential homes and ultimately unlock both the grid and GHG reduction benefits that are associated with widespread adoption of storage in the built environment. ”
Project Innovation
Residential Energy Storage
Residential customers increasingly have the means and incentive to procure home energy storage. These devices can provide useful backup power for homes, but in urban Alberta – where prolonged outages are rare – these devices are not often used to their full capabilities. At the same time, utilities are experiencing accelerating electrification from distributed energy resources like rooftop solar generation and electric vehicle charging across all building types.
Increasing localized generation and consumption presents a unique problem for utilities because they are not coincidental. Instead of rooftop solar microgeneration being used to meet the increasing charging from EVs, we see two emerging problems: increasing “reverse power flow” at midday when rooftop solar is generating and pushing excess energy onto the grid and increasing peak load in the evening when EV users add their charging demand to a time of day where we already observe peak system demand from household dinnertime routines.
Energy storage has the potential to shift that excess midday renewable generation to later in the day when residential customers need it, maximizing both the efficiency and GHG reduction potential of these technologies. Adding distribution system visibility and control of batteries is essential as it allows utilities to optimize the battery charge and discharge events to meet real-time system demands. This visibility allows ENMAX Power to optimize existing distribution assets in coordination with distributed generation from rooftop solar to minimize reliance on Alberta’s carbon intensive grid.
In this pilot project, ENMAX targeted homes in Calgary where distribution equipment is constrained due to load growth from EV adoption and microgeneration growth due to rooftop solar adoption. The targeted homes are detached single family homes built between 1950 and 2015. The homes likely have the standard 100-amp electric service, while new builds in Calgary are being designed with 200-amp service. All target homes have existing rooftop solar PV installations, and the homes will have a mix of overhead and underground lines.
Project Findings
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