Nova Scotia Power has selected Sunverge to provide the technology for a residential virtual power plant that is part of the Smart Grid Atlantic pilot project.
The project is a four-year research and demonstration program, with funding from the Canadian government, to determine how emerging energy technologies can best benefit customers, communities and the province.
The Halifax-based utility will use Sunverge’s real-time DER control, orchestration and aggregation platform combined with LG Electronics residential energy storage systems.
The virtual power plant is designed to bring support and flexibility to the electric grid and customers.
The Sunverge platform grid services, based on day-ahead and intra-day generation planning, provide peak demand reduction, load leveling, generation contingency support, renewables smoothing and distribution feeder congestion management.
According to Sunverge’s announcement, residential customers will benefit by having more control over their solar power (PV) use, backup power for their most critical services during outages, and the potential to save or make money using energy arbitrage.
“We are excited to be selected for this groundbreaking and highly innovative project and to have the opportunity to work closely with Nova Scotia Power to demonstrate the value of residential battery systems for their customers and to the electric grid,” said Martin Milani, CEO of Sunverge. “We are confident that Sunverge’s advanced platform will demonstrate the value of aggregating residential behind-the-meter storage systems for the Nova Scotia electricity grid and participating customers.”
The Smart Grid Atlantic project is exploring ways to make solar power more accessible, the strategic use of grid energy storage, and the use of distributed batteries to provide benefits like reliability, demand management and on-site renewable integration. The project is also testing how battery storage can bring more renewables to the grid and examines electric vehicle smart-charging by looking at coordinated charging and vehicle-to-grid/home technology. Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund partially funds the Smart Grid Atlantic project pilot.
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