COVER
INNOVATION EXCELLENCE: HYDRO ONE Battery Solution Improves Reliability in Remote Region
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ydro One plays a critical role in energizing life for people and communities across Ontario. The company is focused on building a reliable and resilient grid for the future. For some remote communities, vast geography and technical limitations can lead to challenges including a greater frequency and duration of power outages. The Aroland First Nation – an Anishnawbe First Nation located about 350 km northeast of Thunder Bay – is one of those communities. Between 2013 and 2019, the community experienced an average of 57 hours of power outages each year, with outages occurring almost monthly. Nearly all those outages – 99 per cent in fact – originated outside the community. They commonly involved a major weather event or some other factor that resulted in a loss of power to the community along the very long power line that connects Aroland to the distant transmission and distribution systems. Through its efforts to address these challenges, Hydro One earned the EDA Innovation Excellence Award for thinking outside of the box to find a solution. In 2017, Anwaatin Inc. – an organization that supports Indigenous community involvement in fighting climate change, and participation in emerging energy opportunities – brought power outage concerns at communities including Aroland to Hydro One’s attention. Hydro One is committed to working with Indigenous communities to find innovative solutions to better serve its customers. Aroland and Hydro One agreed to install a battery
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storage system that would improve the community’s overall reliability. The system is expected to be installed this year and will power the community in the event of an outage. Hydro One anticipates that the reliability of power in the community will increase by more than 60 per cent. “Hydro One’s first battery storage solution in the Aroland First Nation in northern Ontario, demonstrates how we are planning, building and designing a more resilient grid for the future,” said Bruno Jesus, Vice President Planning, Hydro One. “This non-wires alternative solution is one way Hydro One is investing in new technology to modernize the grid and improve the reliability of power for our customers.” The battery installation proved to build a strong relationship between Hydro One and the Aroland First Nation. Aroland leadership has been engaged in the project since its inception, including the process of securing and assessing the installation site. In its March 2019 decision on Hydro One’s distribution-rate application, the Ontario Energy Board commended the company and the Anwaatin-represented First Nations communities, saying that they had provided an example “of how a cooperative approach can result in mutually beneficial outcomes.” Significantly – in what has been termed a groundbreaking decision – the OEB also allowed some of the distributed energy resources involved to be rate-based. The Aroland battery solution will be the first one Hydro One has implemented, but it will likely not be the last. THE DISTRIBUTOR
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SUMMER 2020
