Electricity Innovation 2020

CoE 2020

Electricity innovation CoE 2020: Electricity Innovation • Canadian Electricity association

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Centre of Excellence 2020

How we make, move and use electricity is changing at an unprecedented pace.

Advances in technology will help build an even cleaner and reliable grid and, in many cases, provide greater choice to Canadians.

This transformation is sure to continue, and Canada’s electricity companies work constantly to meet this change. The Canadian Electricity Association (CEA) celebrates such leadership in innovation, technology and practices each year through its Centre of Excellence. We recognize the work our members are doing to meet the evolving needs of customers while shaping the sustainable grid of the future.

The Centre of Excellence showcases Canadian ingenuity and forward-thinking. It highlights transformational progress in how electricity yields economic, social and environmental benefits for Canadians.

This year, we are proud to celebrate 19 innovative projects from our members across Canada that will help shape our collective energy future.

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Francis Bradley President & CEO, CEA

Coe 2020: Electricity Innovation • Canadian Electricity association

projects ATCO: Jasper Interconnection Project.................. 5 ATCO: Fawcett River Telecommunications.......... 7 Capital Power: Genesee Generating Station...... 9 Elexicon Energy: Smart Community Microgrid...... 11 Elexicon Energy: Smart Inverter Control of PV Solar Farms and Energy Storage Systems..... 13 ENMAX: Load and Generation Hosting Capacities ...................................................... 15

Hydro Ottawa: Best Practices in Asset Management...................................................... 23 Hydro-Québec: LineDrone........................................ 25 Liberty: Sagehen Microgrid...................................... 27 NB Power: First Provincially Connected eCharge Network......................................................... 29 NB Power: Smart Energy Community Project........ 31 Oakville Hydro: Spatial Data Intelligence............ 33

ENMAX: Predictive Analytics Preventing Cable Failure..................................................................... 17

Ontario Power Generation / Hydro One: IVY Charging Network................................................ 35

ENMAX: Reclaimed Wastewater for Power Generation ......................................................... 19

Saint John Energy: Home Heat Saver Program...... 37

Hydro Ottawa: Service Desk Automation............ 21

SaskPower: Substation Automation...................... 39 TC Energy: Saddlebrook Solar and Storage ....... 41

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Jasper Interconnection Project

ATCO’s Jasper Interconnection Project was a complex construction project that connected the Municipality of Jasper to the Alberta electrical grid, removing their dependency on diesel and natural gas from an isolated generating station. ATCO installed one substation, 468 structures, and 44 km of tree wire. The tree wire was adapted to be used at a 69-kV level—the first of its kind in North America—thereby eliminating flashovers and reducing the risk of wildfires.

To mitigate the danger of trees falling on the line and causing outages, ATCO constructed a prototype to simulate controlled tree impacts to validate the integrity of the line design and its ability to withstand these occurrences.

Potential damage was also mitigated by using ATCO’s compact line design, utilizing tree wire conductor, and reinforcing poles and insulators.

As a result, this project and the decommissioning of the diesel and natural gas power plant, 40,077 tonnes of CO2 emissions were removed from the atmosphere. The environmental impacts were even further reduced by negating the need to transport and store large volumes of diesel. The Jasper Interconnection Project provided customers with the option to purchase electricity from clean, renewable energy sources.

The impact to the land was made minimal by routing over existing utilities wherever possible and running parallel to a major pipeline corridor for much of the line route.

Working with the municipality was key to prevent damage during construction.

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Fawcett River Telecommunications

ATCO upgraded an existing, isolated dieselpowered telecommunications tower in Fawcett River, Alberta which supports the transmission electricity network, to an off-grid solar-andstorage microgrid system. ATCO will own and operate 35kW PV solar array and 96kWh lithium ion battery storage, and microgrid control system to provide reliable power to the telecommunications tower. This project eliminated an annual diesel consumption of 26,000 litres. ATCO continues to pursue clean energy opportunities within existing operations.

The lithium ion battery and microgrid controls are critical to system reliability stabilizing the system during fluctuations of solar output. Furthermore, the battery will store excess renewable energy produced during sunny days in the spring and summer to provide power during the night.

Other benefits include improved air quality, reduced noise, increased road safety as a result of reduced diesal tanker trips and overall energy efficiency for the site.

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Powering a Low-carbon Future

The Genesee Generating Station consists of three units which provide over 1,300 MW of reliable, baseload generation for Albertans.

In 2016, Capital Power launched its five-year, $45-million Genesee efficiency improvement program, which targets a 12% reduction in carbon emissions by 2021. This past year, we also announced a $70-million dual-fuel project.

Once completed at the end of 2021, all three units will have real-time flexibility to use up to 100% natural gas or coal, or a mix of the two.

This flexibility will further reduce emissions through the period to the end of 2029.

Capital Power is also building the Genesee Carbon Conversion Centre (GC3) - the world’s first commercial-scale production facility of carbon nanotubes (estimated capital cost $20-25 million). GC3 will utilize emissions from the Genesee facility alongside C2CNT technology, a carbon conversion solution that transforms emissions into carbon nanotubes – a conductive, high-value

product that can be used as an additive to substantially increase the strength of materials such as concrete, steel, and aluminum. The use of carbon nanotubes in downstream industrial processes reduces the amount of inputs and energy required and drives additional reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.

These three transformative projects represent an approximate $135-140 million investment in low-carbon generation, resulting in nearly 3 million tonnes per year of reduction in emissions. *Assumes the Genesee facility operates on 50% natural gas

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Smart Community Microgrid

Elexicon Energy’s Smart Community Microgrid is helping to modernize electricity distribution grids and is demonstrating innovation in cutting-edge technologies that make distribution systems run better. The technology also gives customers more choises and control over their power use.

The project is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Energy’s Smart Grid fund and the IESO ’s Grid Innovation Fund. The Smart Grid Fund provides money to test, develop and launch the next generation of technologies that can turn electricity distribution systems into modern, digitally enabled grids.

The project leads long-term positive impacts for the community including the adoption of renewable generation and electric vehicle charging, power quality improvement, grid reliability improvements and more. The smart and sustainable community offers resiliency, clean self‐generation, demand management and conservation attributes lowering carbon footprint. Elexicon is also field‐ testing a storage asset for the direct benefit of a community.

This reduces the need for more centralised generation assets and helps developing virtual net‐metering policies and regulations.

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Smart Inverter Control of PV Solar Farms and Energy Storage Systems

The high penetration of renewable generation in distribution systems has introduced more uncertainties and technical challenges in the operation of the utility distribution system. Due to the intermittent nature of renewable generation, it is essential to maintain system voltage profile and facilitate smoother integration of inverter based distributed generation. Optimum power distribution also entails the reduction of distribution losses and provision of adequate power quality and availability.

This project is based on a novel patentprotected technology of using PV solar farms as a dynamic reactive power compensator STATCOM, termed PV-STATCOM, with their unused inverter capacity.

Elexicon Energy Inc., in partnership with the University of Western Ontario (UWO), has received a project grant from the LDC Tomorrow Fund managed by the Mearie Group. The project involves the application of a novel smart inverter control of PV solar farms (during night and day) and energy storage systems by utilizing their unused inverter capacities to provide dynamic reactive power exchange with the distribution grids for achieving Line Loss Minimization and Conservation Voltage Reduction.

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Load and Generation Hosting Capacities

For ENMAX Power Corporation, planning the electricity system includes anticipating the effect of new connections to the grid. ENMAX Power’s planning teams need to understand the existing constraints and upcoming demands on the system (loads) to ensure continued reliable electricity service to customers. With the rise of distributed energy resources (DER), the planning teams also need to know where customers can potentially generate electricity, while maintaining the quality and reliability of the grid.

address to quickly understand the system’s available capacity to accommodate the electrical needs of their project. The map is fed data from forecasting and system assessment tools developed in-house.

Commercial customers need to understand existing system constraints when choosing a location for their projects, especially those with large loads such as data centers.

The maps are also used internally to give ENMAX Power visibility into load and DER adoption impacts on the system, and to gain insight into future system improvement.

The second map shows hosting capacity, or the capability for DER projects to be connected to the grid. A customer can search locations to assess the system’s capacity to accommodate their proposed power generation.

In fall 2019, the team launched two interactive online maps, available on enmax.com, which display area load and hosting capacities. Both maps allow customers to quickly shortlist potential locations for their next project.

The load capacity map illustrates the estimated load capacity available within the ENMAX Power distribution service territory.

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Predictive Analytics Preventing Cable Failure

ENMAX Power Corporation identified underground cable failures as the highest contributor to both total customer outage minutes and total customer outage frequency.

In response to this finding, ENMAX Power developed an innovative predictive analytics model to proactively identify buried cables at high risk of failure.

The model is meant to improve the customer experience by addressing reliability concerns due to unplanned cable failures in high-risk areas and help mitigate costs associated with unplanned outages, which can take time to locate and repair.

The predictive model identified the top factors that best predict future faults and applied a ranking system similar to that of online search engines to prioritize results. Overall, the model used more than 1.5 million data points to “learn” from thirteen years of historical information.

This involved data for each asset including physical features such as burial method of the cables and the number of downstream

customers, as well as dynamic features such as outage history, previous faults, and ambient relative humidity. Data gathered between January and July 2019 was used in the testing phase of the model, when ENMAX Power compared predicted outages to actual outages that occurred during that timeframe. The results revealed strong correlations and accuracy in the model’s predictions. On average, 70 per cent of the top cables predicted to fail experienced at least one outage.

ENMAX Power views digital predictive analytics as a way to optimize spending while also improving and maintaining the reliability of the grid to serve customers.

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Reclaimed Wastewater for Power Generation

The ENMAX Shepard Energy Centre is an 860 MW natural gas-fired combined cycle power generating facility, located at the east end of Calgary. Shepard was built with the goal of providing safe, reliable electricity to Albertans long into the future, with a simultaneous commitment to reducing emissions and using resources responsibly.

Shepard uses reclaimed wastewater from The City of Calgary’s Bonnybrook Wastewater Treatment Facility for all its power generation needs – a first in Alberta. This design feature prevents from having to draw nearly 6 million cubic meters of fresh water from the Bow River every year.

After nearly three years of research, observation and lab testing, the team at Shepard was able to pinpoint the optimal operating efficiency of the cooling towers while still maintaining all cooling water chemistry parameters within their required concentration limits. This perfect balance has reduced the plant’s annual wastewater volume by 25-30 per cent – saving nearly 500 million litres per year with a related annual cost savings of more than $1.5 million.

Now into the third year of the initiative, the process has been continuously improving. As of the third quarter of 2020, Shepard has already saved $1.7 million while still increasing the megawatt output being produced.

Reclaimed water is far more variable than fresh water and contains a large proportion of inorganic and organic compounds that must be kept within strict concentration limits for health and environmental reasons. In the cooling water cycle, every pass through the cooling towers increases the concentration of these dissolved substances.

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Service Desk Automation

The ability to access information and complete transactions “anywhere/anytime” is a baseline customer expectation. To advance the customer experience, Hydro Ottawa introduced Salesforce, a cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution for Service Desk activity.

Integrating Salesforce involved the replacement of a legacy system, fully integrated with existing business applications.

The transition could not impact customers or day-to-day operations and had to be future proof for anticipated enhancements.

The qualitative benefits of implementation include: • Simplified online service request forms • Integration of Google address autocomplete cross referenced with the Geographic Information System (GIS)

• Case management and skills routing to engage the right people at the right time • Management of requests entirely within Salesforce for improved visibility and cycle time • Out-of-the-box (OOTB) mobile application to manage and respond to requests after hours • Implementation of `Voice of the Customer’ (VOC) survey at the end of a job • Service Level Agreements (SLA) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) embedded into process for easy tracking • Foundation for new processes such as vault maintenance The new system will deliver ROI in less than two years.

• Customer and contractor authentication to eliminate data entry of tombstone information • Workflow implementation with key milestone communications • Migration of service layout quotations into Salesforce facilitating 360-degree view of customer

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Best Practices in Asset Management

Hydro Ottawa has the distinction of becoming the first Canadian utility to receive the prestigious ISO55001:2014 certification for best practices in asset management from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), joining only three other North American electric utilities.

With ISO55001:2014 accreditation, Hydro Ottawa and its customers benefit from:

With an independent non-governmental global network of national standards institutes from each of its 165 member countries -- including the Standards Council of Canada -- the Independent Organization for Standardization brings together experts to share knowledge and develop voluntary, consensus-based, market-relevant international standards that support innovation and provide solutions to global challenges.

• A collaborative approach to decision making and a set framework for dealing with subcontractors;

• Enhanced risk management; • Trust and confidence of investors and stakeholders; • Reduced capital and operational costs;

• A safer, more reliable and innovative environment Hydro Ottawa’s work on this significant certification achievement began in 2018 and included multiple gap assessments and internal audits before finally bringing the system to a level of maturity that allowed it to engage in the certification process.

The ISO55001:2014 certification signifies superior asset management practices that demonstrate Hydro Ottawa’s ability to achieve a number of important operational, environmental and financial goals for the betterment of its customers and community.

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LineDrone

The Hydro-Québec Research Institute (IREQ) has developed a line inspection drone called LineDrone. The drone is used to inspect highvoltage lines.

In addition to being capable of landing on a transmission line and of rolling along it, the LineDrone can be equipped with tools and sensors to examine electrical conductors and detect corrosion. This solution can significantly reduce risks to workers while limiting traditional helicopter inspections which also reduces GHG emissions.

The drone technology allows Hydro-Québec to safely inspect high voltage lines under a wide variety of terrain and climate conditions without compromising the continuity of electricity service.

Hydro-Québec recently signed an agreement with Drone Volt for the industrialization and commercialization of this drone.

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Sagehen Microgrid

The new Sagehan Microgrid will provide the power needed to operate the facility and support the full system. It also allows Liberty, who delivers electricity to customers in the Tahoe-Truckee area, to de-energize four miles of power line in the high fire risk summer months.

The microgrid will consist of 48 solar panels and 53kWh of battery storage system with a backup propane generator. This complete system is expected to operate on greater than 95% renewable energy. The generator is available to provide power only when there is insufficient charge in the batteries or during no or low solar energy production. The major equipment will be housed in a climate-controlled storage container on a concrete pad, safe from the elements.

It reduces both wildfire risk to the region and provides power generation and balancing to the full system. This project was a transmission and distribution deferral project. However, in order to harden the line for wildfire mitigation, it would have required significant time for environmental permitting, and over $3Million in Capital costs. The Microgrid was a more efficient and cost-effective solution for all customers.

Similar microgrid projects will continue to add renewable electricity generation to the system as well as provide greater flexibility and reliability to customers.

The microgrid is a decentralized electric source and distribution that can provide electric power to an isolated area of the electrical distribution system and be synchronized with the full system, providing additional power and load balancing.

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First Provincially Connected EV Charging Network

With the burgeoning electrification of the transportation sector, NB Power quickly realized the potential impacts of this transformation on the way electricity is consumed by Canadians.

New Brunswick became the first fully connected province with a smart electric vehicle fast charging network.

In 2017, NB Power officially launched the eCharge Network by developing a charging corridor of Level 3 DC fast chargers along the Trans-Canada highway at 65 km intervals in addition to standard level 2 charging stations at municipalities and businesses throughout the province. The corridor connects New Brunswick with the neighboring provinces of Quebec and Nova Scotia, ensuring seamless charging for both residents and visitors with electric vehicles. Drivers can find available chargers close by and add credits to their eCharge Network app, making it easier to charge their vehicles and plan their travels around the province.

barriers to adoption: range anxiety. With funding from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), NB Power developed two education and awareness campaigns to address range anxiety and other common barriers, such as cost of ownership and maintenance of electric vehicles.

NB Power has joined the movement of electrifying transportation and has replaced 50% of their entire light duty passenger fleet with electric vehicles. By establishing a network of smart public charging stations, NB Power is leading the charge by facilitating the growth of the electric vehicle market in New Brunswick and helping realize their vision of a more sustainable energy future for the province they’re proud to call home.

The eCharge Network supports New Brunswickers as they consider making the switch to EVs by tackling one of the most common

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Smart Energy Community Project

A small seaside town in New Brunswick is helping to shape the future of energy in the Atlantic region. The Town of Shediac is the focus of the Smart Energy Community Project, as part of a four-year federally funded research and demonstration program to determine how energy technologies of the future can provide customer, community and provincial benefits.

The research project has three components - a residential energy study to test new smart energy technologies in 500 homes; the conversion of two commercial buildings to net zero; and a 1.8MW community solar farm with utility battery storage capacity.

NB Power and its partners will leverage learnings from the residential study on ways that utilities can best optimize Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) to benefit the whole system and future projects. The other components will provide key insights into self-sufficiency and clean energy microgrids.

the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) is the lead research partner.

The Smart Energy Community project is also serving as the foundation for a new Energy Systems Platform (ESP) being developed by Siemens’ Global Smart Grid R&D facility in Fredericton, New Brunswick. This new cloudbased system will help the utility connect directly with these new energy technologies so customers can participate in programs that benefit them.

This project will help NB Power and its partners understand how these new technologies will fit into the way customers use electricity, the electricity grid and how those can be used to their advantage for a more sustainable energy future.

The federal departments of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) are funding this important research, and CoE 2020: Electricity Innovation • Canadian Electricity association 31

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Spatial Data Intelligence

In 2019, Oakville Hydro began its journey towards spatial excellence with the development of the Spatial Data Roadmap. This Oakville Hydro initiative was designed to improve the organization’s spatial data resources through interdepartmental collaboration and alignment in the pursuit of data excellence.

Oakville Hydro recognizes the value and importance of spatial data in their day to day operations, and its impact on customer reliability and safety. The project quickly evolved into a journey to improve the organization’s data maturity model, allowing it to better integrate with artificial intelligence (AI) for decision-making practices. It is an ambitious initiative that will help Oakville Hydro adopt the latest disruptive technologies.

Oakville Hydro’s first initiatives included integration between health indices and spatial locations to select rebuilds, root cause analysis of failures, operational tools to better locate trouble areas in the field, spatial analytics to optimally install range extending equipment for our IoT (Internet of Things) devices, and AI driven inspections. The organization plans on continuing its Spatial Data journey and wants to share its experiences with others to encourage a `map-first’ approach to problem solving within utilities.

A full inventory of initiatives was developed, with the main focus on data capture, visualization, and automation. Oakville Hydro engaged multiple resources, both internal and external, to make this a reality.

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IVY CHARGING NETWORK

Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation partnered to launch Ivy Charging Network, which will be Ontario’s largest electric vehicle (EV) fast-charger network by the end of 2021.

Ivy is designed to make charging on-the-go easy, reliable and seamless and will connect Ontario from north to south and east to west.

With each location less than 100km apart on average, Ivy will put an end to range anxiety once and for all.

By increasing electricity usage in Ontario through the broader adoption of EVs, it is anticipated that electricity rates could go down by spreading the system’s fixed costs across more users.

Ivy currently has 17 locations open with more opening all the time. Join the ride with Ivy and see where we’ll be next at ivycharge.com

To provide our customers with the best experience, Ivy has selected locations with convenient access and nearby amenities.

Ivy will support a greener transportation sector in Ontario by encouraging EV adoption and making it possible to travel long-distances in an EV.

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Home Heat Saver Program

Saint John Energy is on a mission to help their customers better understand their home heat loss. With many beautiful heritage homes in Saint John, Saint John Energy recognizes that many of these homes experience significant heat loss which can lead to high power bills in winter. The Home Heat Saver program uses thermal images of the utility’s customers’ rooftops to help them identify the areas in which their home is losing the most heat and the way to fix it.

With this program, customers can view a colour-coded Heat Loss Map of their home, allowing them to pinpoint areas that experience the most heat loss. Based on the amount of heat escaping, homes are given a Heat Loss Score of 1-10. Using this score, customers can compare their home to their neighbourhood and city average.

Similar projects show homeowners are 5x more likely to make improved changes after using their Heat Loss Map. The Home Heat Saver will improve energy literacy in the community and help customers stop paying for unused heat.

The project is in partnership with Calgarybased MyHEAT and the University of New Brunswick (UNB). MyHEAT provides the technology for the program while UNB leads the data analytics.

This program will help customers make informed decisions to improve their energy efficiency.

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Substation Automation

Electric utilities are looking forward to significant technical and business effort to rebuild and renew electric systems, while also incorporating leading edge technology to meet changing societal expectations around renewables.

Within substations, the push for renewal is represented by the IEC 61850 standard which has been gaining ground in North America.

SaskPower has been at the forefront of adopting this technology in automating substation applications with an in-house developed multivendor approach since 2014.

The change in technology required development of new standards starting from the representation of design documents, engineering, operating standards, to asset management standards. It has been recognized that besides the changes in technology, a significant change was also represented by the training and expertise development of engineers, operators, and maintenance staff.

In partnership with Innovation Saskatchewan and the University of Regina, SaskPower has established training courses where staff

impacted by the change had the opportunity to learn and train.

With the adoption of the standard for all new installations, the implementation of the new technology within SaskPower has been very successful, including the elimination of auxiliary relaying, and complete move to fiber optic cablebased substation automation communications.

Currently there are over 50 substations in SaskPower using the IEC 61850 (GOOSE/MMS) standard, with all new installations based on this standard going forward. The experience so far indicates that the new systems are reliable, multivendor interoperable, and they deliver the value and operations flexibility expected.

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Saddlebrook Solar and Storage

The proposed project will consist of a solar generating facility in conjunction with a flow battery energy storage system. The solar generating facility will use state-of-the-art bifacial solar panels to generate energy. As part of a recent partnership with Lockheed Martin, the project will utilize Lockheed Martin’s GridStar® Flow Energy Storage System, allowing for long-duration energy storage.

Having been awarded a funding contribution

by Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) through their BEST Challenge, the innovative pilot project is intended to demonstrate the potential to reduce GHG emissions in Alberta and secure the province’s success in a lower carbon economy.

This phase is expected to provide enough emission-free electricity to power approximately 3,000 homes. In addition, the system will offer up to 5 MW of energy storage for up to eight hours, capable of providing clean energy to the Alberta grid even when the sun isn’t shining.

By utilizing the available vacant land on the project site, the project has the capability to expand in subsequent phases up to 95 MW of solar generation, along with additional energy storage capacity.

The project will be located entirely on TC Energy owned land at the Saddlebrook Industrial Park located near Aldersyde, Alberta. The initial pilot phase will consist of a 10-megawatt (MWac) utility scale solar facility, combined with a utility-scale (5 MWac, 40 MWh) energy storage facility utilizing the GridStar® Flow Energy Storage System technology.

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Coe 2020: Electricity Innovation • Canadian Electricity association

The Canadian Electricity Association (CEA) would like to thank all electric utilities participating in this year’s Centre of Excellence. This year, we have the privilege to welcome 19 projects from a total of 14 utilities across Canada.

During these unprecedented times, members of the Canadian Electricity Association have continued to keep the lights on and provide us the power to persevere through the new challenges we are currently facing. And in doing so, utilities have demonstrated ingenuity, creativity and transformed how we think about the electricity sector today, creating economic, social and environmental benefits for all Canadians. The Centre of Excellence is a platform to celebrate game-changing ideas in the electric utility space, that bring us closer to our collective goal of achieving net-zero by 2050.

Thank you for demonstrating innovation excellence in our industry.

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Coe 2020: Electricity Innovation • Canadian Electricity association