For a long time, energy storage has been one of the main energy use methods in some parts of Canada. The abundant hydrological resources found in BC, Quebec and the eastern coastal areas enable pumped storage facilities located in these areas to provide multiple energy storage benefits.
However, due to the vastness of Canada and the large geographical differences, the development of power grids in different regions is significantly different. Now, it also has a big impact on Canada's energy storage industry.
In terms of regulation, Canada does not have an organization similar to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) (the National Energy Commission of Canada focuses on oil, gas, and international and interprovincial transmission). From the current situation, the power links between individual Canadian provinces and the southern border states are more closely related to their domestic provinces.
Schematic diagram of the nine regional power markets in North America. Provinces such as Ontario and Alberta in central Canada have closer links with the US electricity market than domestic ones.
Today, Canada's provinces and autonomous regions are actively developing new energy storage technologies (lithium ion, air compression and flywheel energy storage), especially in the provinces of Central Ontario and Alberta, where water resources are relatively less abundant. .
In general, the current Canadian energy storage market is mainly driven by four aspects: 1. Government procurement; 2. Behind-the-meter cost reduction; 3. Construction of public facilities; 4. Electricity in remote communities. Reliability solution. Based on these factors, we expect that by 2022, Canada's new energy storage capacity will reach 1.1GW/2.5GWh.
Government Procurement
In Ontario, independent power system operators (IESOs) have taken competitive bidding. Since 2012, these competitive biddings have completed the procurement of about 20 energy storage projects, which are about 50MW after they are fully operational.
The current procurement model is mainly divided into two phases: the first phase focuses on providing auxiliary services through basic energy storage construction to improve system reliability; the second phase of procurement should consider meeting future system requirements and delaying power transmission and transformation investment. And to improve the consumption of renewable energy and so on. At the same time, IESO will also regularly issue tenders for energy storage projects that include FM or demand side responses. In these respects, the competition for energy storage is becoming increasingly fierce.
The construction and commissioning of these procurement projects is the result of long-term public relations efforts in the Canadian energy storage industry, and also laid a solid foundation for Canadian energy storage companies to participate in large-scale grid or utility projects. Since these projects do not rely on public incentives and financial subsidies, they can also avoid political interference (the new Ontario government may cut or cancel the previous government's renewable energy project plan).
In terms of policy, Ontario's Long Term Energy Program (LTEP), released in 2017, has recognized the need to address regulatory barriers to energy storage technology. Therefore, in April 2018, the Ontario Independent Power System Operator (IESO) established an energy storage advisory group to identify potential barriers to fair competition in energy storage and to address related issues. At the same time, the Ontario Energy Commission (OEB) has released an implementation plan to promote distributed energy development, including energy storage projects.
After research, IESO concluded that energy storage technology can provide some guarantee services (such as frequency modulation, voltage control and standby) for power system reliability. Energy storage can also delay transmission and distribution investment, improve the utilization of existing power assets and the quality of power supply within the region. The IESO also recommends that in order to take full advantage of the energy storage potential, investors should focus on segments that offer multiple services.
In Alberta, the Alberta Power System Operator (AESO) began researching the value of energy storage in 2012. The province plans to achieve 30% of its electricity supply from renewable sources by 2030. In this context, in May 2018, AESO completed an assessment report on renewable energy and energy storage. The report believes that lithium battery energy storage systems have cost-effective competitiveness in the ancillary services market, but only if some market rules and transmission price problems are to be solved.
Post energy storage market
The use of energy storage facilities to reduce the high-cost electricity bills during peak hours is an important reason for the development of Canada's post-storage energy storage market.
(Annotation: Behind-the-meter (after the meter) and Front-of-the-meter (before the meter). Simple understanding, the market after the table refers to residents and industrial and commercial energy storage, the market in front of the market refers to the power grid and power supply side. )
In recent years, in Ontario, due to the GA: GlobalAdjustment system and the Industrial Protection Initiative (ICI), there has been a new trend in the post-storage energy storage market, and some users have reduced their electricity demand during peak hours. .
According to the GA (network-wide adjustment fee) system established by the Ontario government in 2005, industrial users are required to pay large electricity bills. GA is a system designed to solve the problem of “lack of money” (that is, the market income is insufficient to pay a certain fixed capacity cost). A drop in the spot price of electricity led to an increase in GA, and vice versa. Over the years, Ontario's GA costs have grown significantly, from $700 million in 2006 (8% of total electricity costs) to $11.9 billion in 2017 (more than 80% of total electricity costs).
According to the Industrial Protection Initiative (ICI), Alberta's allocation of full-scale adjustment fees (GAs) to large industrial consumers (Class A) depends on their hourly demand for the top five peaks in the province over the past 12 months. Contributions, while the remaining GA costs are transferred to other consumers (B grade) in terms of power consumption.
In order to minimize GA costs (in some cases, this may far exceed the price of electricity), Class A consumers are motivated to consume from peak hours (or by reducing production or self-supplied power plants (including energy storage) The expected peak time is transferred out. As a result, Ontario has experienced a “gold rush” and many local and international energy storage companies are chasing the largest commercial and industrial users of GA expenses.
Utility construction
In addition to provincial procurement, some Ontario utility companies are leading different energy storage technologies to participate in a variety of scenario applications. Their experience to date proves that energy storage technology has the potential to be a comprehensive tool for managing peak loads, regulating voltage frequencies, ensuring the reliability of renewable energy generation, and creating more flexible transmission and distribution systems.
Many utility companies also recommend that the relevant costs become part of the base price. For customers, energy storage can be a useful tool to reduce costs associated with peak energy demand.
For example, Toronto Hydropower Corporation of Ontario and its partners have conducted several pilots. One of the energy storage projects is used to test the grid benefits of underwater compressed air energy storage. The project focuses on verifying backup power, transferring loads and mitigating transmission and distribution congestion. Another project is to develop a pole mounted on a pole. The solution is to charge and discharge during off-peak hours and improve its reliability by automatically responding to smart meter data. The benefits of this system include load balancing, infrastructure upgrade delays, and flexible operations.
Similarly, HydroOne, Ontario, also operated a flywheel energy storage system in the province to regulate voltage fluctuations caused by a 20MW wind farm and Oshawa Power. Their partners have also developed a project that allows families in Oshawa to use solar energy at home and use lithium-ion batteries to store solar energy, shifting energy demand from peak to off-peak and providing backup power in the event of a power outage.
In Alberta, the Alberta Public Utilities Commission (AUC) approved a pumped storage project. When electricity demand is low, water will be pumped from the lower reservoir to the higher reservoir. When electricity is needed, such as during peak or low wind periods, to power wind farms in southern Alberta, water will be allowed to flow back to lower reservoirs and drive turbines to generate electricity.
Energy storage, distributed generation and remote communities
Arranging energy storage facilities in distributed energy sources can improve power supply security and respond to emergencies. For example, in the case of silos (many remote northern communities in Canada are actually “islands”), when a part of the system is disconnected from the mains due to downtime, the battery can react quickly to maintain power.
In addition, when the stored electricity is injected into the grid during the peak of power consumption, the peak load of the system will be reduced, thereby reducing the pressure on the key equipment of the substation, which will prolong the service life of related assets and delay the construction of new investment.
BCHydro's 1MW battery energy storage facility is a successful example. It is located in two remote mountain areas of the province for distributed generation scenarios (this is an encouraging precedent, indicating that non-hydroelectric power storage can still have a place in places with large amounts of water resources).
Before 2013, Jinshan Town and Field Town, located in the eastern Kutnay Mountains of British Columbia, suffered from inadequate power supply protection for a long time. Both towns receive electricity from the Jinshan substation of BC Hydro, which uses four radial distribution feeders to power Jinshan Town and its surrounding areas.
The town of Field is located about 50 kilometers east of Jinshan Town and is powered by a 25 kV branch of Jinshan Substation. Due to the high mountains and dense forests of the Joho National Park where the town of Field is located, the weather is cold and the snow is heavy in the winter. The power lines often have long power outages, and the rugged terrain makes it difficult for workers to find faults and restore power.
In many parts of Canada, the latitude is extremely high, and the four seasons are bitter and cold. Energy storage is one of the solutions to effectively protect the power supply.
In early 2010, BC Hydro also predicted that the peak load in the region would exceed substation capacity by the winter of 2013-2014. As a result, the company partnered with Natural Resources Canada to install a seven-hour battery storage system in these areas. Since their deployment in 2013, they have effectively reduced system load during peak demand periods in the region and have delayed substation transformer upgrades for two years.
At present, many remote northern aboriginal communities in Canada are also actively considering the use of renewable energy to generate electricity and energy storage to reduce the dependence on diesel generators. The diesel they need needs to be transported by air, which is not only costly, but also prone to power failures in low temperature environments.
Conclusion
Energy storage plays an important role in power grid optimization and modernization. In the past two decades, the price of energy storage systems (especially batteries) has fallen sharply, and the downward trend in costs is expected to continue in the foreseeable future. With the decline of costs, the loosening of market barriers, the value of energy storage has become increasingly prominent, and people regard energy storage as a key component of renewable energy and efficient power systems in the grid 2.0 era.
According to current trends, Canada's energy storage market is expected to grow at a rate of 35% per year for the next four years, and the development prospects are very optimistic. However, in addition to the progress made so far, the large-scale development of energy storage requires the joint efforts of regulators, utilities and industry to address the remaining obstacles and limitations – including the technical barriers to the participation of energy storage resources in the market. And ambiguous rules for dealing with non-traditional assets that have both electrical and power generation resources.
