Confederation College

Funding from the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) is helping Confederation College and Synergy North run a new energy pilot project.

The IESO is providing $3.2 million through its Grid Innovation Fund to help install a large-scale electric heat pump and thermal storage facility at Confederation College.

“Confederation College is installing thermal storage, and Synergy North is using that thermal storage to help with peak demand on the electrical grid,” explained Synergy North’s Vice President of System Planning, Asset Management and Engineering, Karla Bailey.

“It’s a huge step forward for innovation, especially in northwestern Ontario. This hasn’t been done yet in the province, and so we’re really hopeful to see the results from this that can be used with other institutions.”

The unique part of the project, is the use of thermal storage to help the grid, giving Confederation College the ability to drop its electrical load with the thermal storage.

Essentially, what the storage does is allow the college to store excess energy as well as provide it to Syergy North for use as well.

“The other special part about this is that in Thunder Bay, we are winter peaking,” said Bailey. “So our big loads happen in the winter when people are using their heat, and so the college can use this solution to help us in our winter peak, but also bid into the provincial market when there’s a provincial peak.”

“Southern Ontario typically peaks in the summer. They have their most load, so they can use it both ways, which is special.”

The storage’s actual contribution to the grid will be small, but the initiative is more of a pilot project, which aims to see if this type of project could be repeated at other institutions in the province.

The project has quietly been in the works for a few years, with the college updating its electrical systems in preparation for the project.

The college anticipates construction to get the project up in running will take under two years.

“This is going to be really important for the city of Thunder Bay, it’s a bit of a proof of concept to show that this is possible to do within the city of Thunder Bay,” explained Confederation College President Michelle Salo.

“We already respond to the energy grid for Ontario, so this is actually responding to the city of Thunder Bay’s needs.”

The project will be a benefit to the provincial electricity grid, but it will also provide an opportunity for students attending the college.

“So we have access to our system, so the students can actually see our energy system live when they’re in their labs, in their classrooms, so they can see, you know, our biomass boiler, they can see all the energy coming in, whether it’s electricity, natural gas they can see our systems operating in real time,” said Salo.

“They have the learning opportunity first and foremost, which is, you know, an important factor we want to make sure that our students are always connected in some way to our infrastructure in those fields where they’re going to be going and working in the future, so having access to real live data is going to be really important to this project.”

According to the province, the energy demand in Ontario is expected to grow significantly over the next 25 years, leading to the creation of energy projects like this.

Blackstone Energy Services and Powerconsumer are both contributing to the project as well.