First and foremost, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this topic about strategic interties. Before I start, this is a little about myself and our company, PowerHub.
I am a co-founder and entrepreneur in both clean tech and software, so I bring a different perspective to the table. We're a homegrown Canadian company. We were born and bred in the Ontario feed-in tariff program, starting in 2011. We're a small company that's been growing successfully. Our head count grew by about 60% this year. We work globally, in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and so on.
We have a varied perspective on renewable energy because we're dedicated to the renewable energy sector as a software company. We work with global and local portfolios of renewable energy assets to help them run more effective and efficient operations to ultimately lower their costs of operation. We've seen a lot of renewables entering the grid in a variety of ways, and those are the things I would like to bring forward today.
When I received the invitation to join this committee, I wondered why strategic electricity interties. I think there are very important questions regarding options here. Regarding the reasons to look at interties, be it the import-export of power, its grid stability, better trade between jurisdictions, reduced dependence on fossil fuels in certain instances, you can also consider grid expansion to underserved areas.
If I look at grid interties overall, I think the important question to bring forward today is whether the investment in interties has a greater social benefit than the costs from these investments. I think it's very important to look at this opportunity to invest in interties, invest in interconnections, from a ratepayer point of view, where there are basically ratepayer-funded improvements. Even if this is a provincial jurisdiction, I think greater ratepayers in all of Canada need to consider it. We can look at the social benefits of good interties and good grids. Reducing the costs of energy to ratepayers brings great positives to system balancing, impacts on jobs, or even other social benefits.
I think we have a great opportunity to look at this across Canada and a more cohesive juncture than simple market by market, which we see all across the globe. I think now is a great time to be asking these questions.
If we look at what our clients are saying about interconnection, interties, they're looking for a grid that has more capacity, certainty, reliability, modernity, and transparency. The transparency aspect is very important, as grid operations can be fairly opaque to a lot of people, even people in the industry. We have clients, for example, who are currently stalling in a few projects that have been built. They are awaiting commissioning for their specific interconnect reason, so they're looking for more transparency there. Ultimately this leads to an opportunity to look at this in a really smart way, and see how we can manage not only interties, interconnections, but all of the grid in a smarter fashion.
I'll preface this by saying that PowerHub is not a company operating in a smart-grid format, first and foremost. We're simply a software provider for renewable energy providers. Depending on the goals that we have for interties, the key thing to consider, in my opinion, is to invest in tomorrow, looking at this as grid modernization and intertie modernization rather than simple expansion, and smarter ways to do that. It's looking at building a better integrated grid instead of simply a bigger grid.
This is supported by baseline trends that we see everywhere, not only in North America but worldwide, for increased investment in energy efficiency, which can have an impact on demand-side management. On the flip side of that, the growth of distributed energy resources, the infamous DERs of the grid, where customers are becoming a generator as well, so enhanced customer participation.... You lay on top of that the rise of EVs, and the electricity mix and functions are changing drastically.
We have an opportunity to look at how we can build a state-of-the-art electricity system where benefits really outweigh the costs for the ratepayer. In my humble opinion, we should look at smart grids as a method above and beyond simple interties. We should look at how we can automate, monitor, and control the grid in a dynamic way, to basically better integrate renewables on one hand, improve reliability on another, drive operational efficiencies, plan the grid, enable EVs, and ultimately bring in some storage, which will deal with some of the dispatchability issues that are inherent to renewables.
If I look at the Canadian energy strategy, focusing on smart grids can also have areas of focus on the energy efficiency side, on the transition to a lower-carbon economy, on anticipating the rush of renewables, and on developing a modern and reliable transmission system. I think there are some great opportunities here for us to look at this as a federal point of view.
As I mentioned, I think electricity is a provincial purview, but if we look at this as Canadians, the real question for me is whether we can create the right climate for innovation and development around those problems, around those opportunities regarding the grid, interties, and so on, because I think the time is right. Looking at this from an entrepreneur's standpoint where we've developed capabilities that we're now exporting worldwide, I ask how we can do the same in the grid. When I say “we”, I don't mean it personally, but I'm looking at the whole Canadian community. How can we cultivate this innovation to ultimately drive long-term wealth creation and exportable knowledge, IP, which is going to create resilient jobs, create growth and create knowledge?
Ultimately, in my opinion, that is going to create returns for the ratepayers and create the possibility to really set ourselves up for success in the long term.
Thank you very much and I look forward to your questions.