Energy storage: The Bold Opportunity For Atlantic Canada’s Clean Energy Future
Annette Verschuren, O.C. is the founder and chief executive officer of energy storage firm NRStor Inc. Dr. Jeff Dahn, O.C. is Professor, Canada Research Chair, and NSERC/Tesla Canada Industrial Research Chair at Dalhousie University.
Across Atlantic Canada, we face both a challenge and an opportunity in mapping out our transition to net zero. Ambitious government targets have been set to phase out coal and add more renewables like wind and solar to our energy mix, but we need to make this switch while maintaining energy reliability and affordability.
Building out emissions-free energy storage systems across the region will allow Atlantic Canada to make this switch while accelerating the transition from coal to a truly clean energy system. Advancements in energy storage technology and lower costs make it a viable and exciting option.
The key to optimizing any system is good storage. Let’s take a look at food, for example. Once harvested, food goes through a series of storage systems from the farm all the way to your table. Storage takes place at harvest facilities, in transport, at the grocery store, and in your fridge. Due to the efficiency and reliability of these storage systems, we can consume food when we need or want it – weeks to months after harvest. Take away storage and most foods would require near-immediate consumption, significantly throwing supply and demand off balance, and leaving much of our food to go to waste.
Without similar storage solutions for clean energy, we experience supply and demand imbalances to the same effect. Produced electricity requires near-immediate consumption, but the need for it is not always there. In times of low demand, this energy is wasted like food rotting on a shelf. Energy storage helps to eliminate this waste. Extending the life of renewable, clean energy maximizes our ability to utilize the resource, solving a supply and demand problem that is crucial to our clean energy future.
At the end of the day, Atlantic Canadians want reliable, affordable, and emission-free electricity. Energy storage can play a major role in making this happen. We can use storage to better optimize all our energy system assets – including wind or solar facilities, transmission and distribution lines, and even existing fossil fuel facilities while we have them. It will enable more local renewable energy generation to be added to the system and let us make better use of new connections, including the proposed Atlantic Loop.
Technological evolution, matched with market need, now makes modular battery storage projects cost-effective with a small footprint — they can be built at various sizes in almost any location. In fact, storage projects are now built at the same capacity as conventional gas powerplants, without the need for large fuel pipelines and no greenhouse gas or noxious emissions.
Atlantic Canada is already home to several experts in energy storage in the academic and private sectors, with serious R&D efforts underway. Notably, faculty at Dalhousie University have developed industrial partnerships with international and local energy storage companies. Jeff Dahn, Michael Metzger, and Chongyin Yang are partnered with Tesla until 2026,
Mark Obrovac is partnered with Novonix until 2026, and Lukas Swan has several local spinoffs. Novonix, headed by CEO Chris Burns, is a spinoff from Dahn’s lab and is a world leader in lithium-ion battery materials and test equipment. Salient Energy is a local company commercializing rechargeable zinc batteries. Finally, there is Surrette Battery in Amherst, a world leader in deep cycle lead-acid batteries.
NRStor is a Canadian company that provides world-leading energy storage projects and has a track record of cutting energy costs and emissions. Through building partnerships in the private sector and with Indigenous communities, we are ensuring energy storage infrastructure is built in a way that provides benefit to all.
NRStor recently announced the Oneida Energy Storage Project in Ontario, set to become one of the largest battery projects in the world. The 250 Megawatt (MW)/1000 Megawatt-hour (MWh) facility anticipates reducing electricity costs to ratepayers by up to $760-million and reducing Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions by 4.1 million tonnes, the equivalent of taking about 40,000 cars off the road every year over the project’s life.
Energy storage projects like Oneida are also stimulating local economies, creating over 500 person-years of employment, transferring unique knowledge to a local workforce and complementing a growing renewable energy sector.
With tech companies like Google seeking to meet round-the-clock electricity demands with carbon-free sources by 2030, and industrial manufacturers like Michelin aiming to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, the market demand for reliable, clean energy has never been higher and continues to grow.
Atlantic Canada can use large-scale energy storage to create a cleaner energy system coupled with improved power quality and reliability. This will retain existing businesses as well as attract new businesses to the region.
While energy storage projects like Oneida begin rolling out around the world, Atlantic Canada can seize an opportunity through its transition. With advancements in energy storage technology, battery expertise in some of Canada’s top universities and colleges, an innovative ecosystem, a favourable policy environment, and a common regional goal of achieving net-zero, we have the right ingredients to become global leaders in clean energy and energy storage deployment.
Achieving a net-zero future will require a coordinated effort bringing together the appropriate stakeholders from government, industry, Indigenous and local communities, and academia, and there is no doubt that energy storage is set to play a big role. When it comes to adopting this technology in Atlantic Canada, the benefits are countless, the opportunity is there, and the time is now.
Huddle publishes commentaries from groups and individuals on important business issues facing the Maritimes. These commentaries do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Huddle. To submit a commentary for consideration, contact editor Mark Leger: [email protected].