Pilot project could help Berwick capitalize on energy storage
The Town of Berwick is partnering in a pilot project that could put it on the leading edge of renewable energy storage capability.
Mayor Don Clarke said Equilibrium Engineering invited Berwick to take part in the Power Forward Challenge. Equilibrium is a Nova Scotia-based energy services firm focused on sustainable building design and energy conservation sectors. It is also a consulting firm specializing in sustainable design, energy management and process improvement.
As part of the Power Forward Challenge, Natural Resources Canada and the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of the United Kingdom has challenged Canadian and U.K. companies to design cleaner, user-friendly power grids while helping to prevent power outages.
One intent is to accelerate the development of so-called smart grid technologies. Applicants were asked to build collaborative teams with representatives from both Canadian and U.K.-based firms.
“Most of the projects that were submitted to this competition had to do with battery storage,” Clarke said. “They (Equilibrium) partnered with a Scottish firm (StorTera) that makes batteries, and then they decided that they needed to find a place to try out some of their ideas.”
Equilibrium and StorTera is known as the Alba Nova team. They approached the Town of Berwick about working with the Berwick Electric Commission, the town-owned electrical utility, as part of the project. Clarke said Berwick quickly accepted the offer, asking “When do we start?”
Clarke said he and Don Regan, utility manager, went to Ottawa with representatives of Equilibrium to take part in project presentations. There were three Canadian winners and the Equilibrium-StorTera project, valued at approximately $3 million, was among them. The Canadian winners and four winners from the U.K. will be competing for a $1 million prize.
Clarke said the project is about investigating how battery storage and renewable power can work together to make it more efficient and add value. It involves the installation of a mixture of energy storage assets in combination with solar photovoltaic systems and a distributed artificial intelligence control system that could help shape Berwick’s future electric grid.
“Storage is the secret with renewable power because wind doesn’t blow all the time and sun doesn’t shine all the time,” Clarke said.
There are 10 houses in Berwick that have been selected to receive rooftop solar panels and two large storage batteries as part of the project.
The town will receive three container size batteries, one to install at town hall, one for the sewage treatment plant and one for the Kings Mutual Century Centre.
Clarke said the Dalhousie University engineering program’s renewable energy storage lab is also a partner in the pilot project.
He said Berwick is in discussions with Equilibrium to see if it would be possible instead for all or some of the solar panels to be among those installed as part of the Berwick solar garden project. Clarke said the two projects fit very well together.
The solar garden project involves Berwick and its partners in the Alternative Resource Energy Authority installing several acres of solar panels to increase the amount of renewable energy consumed by customers of their municipally-owned electrical utilities.