Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 30th, 2017

[Dr. Judith Bossé]

I will ask Alexandre to answer your question.

[Alexandre Prieur, Smart Grid Project Leader, Innovation and Energy Technology Sector, CanmetENERGY-Varennes, Department of Natural Resources]

Thank you.

The answer to your question is that there are different levels. First, there is the interconnection for a utility-sized power plant. Right now the standard for interconnection is being reviewed in Canada. We are participating in this activity to review the distributed energy generation interconnection standard.

It is true that, at the utility scale level, it is decided by the utility. If you do a big power plant of photovoltaic generation, it is an agreement with the utility where you are, but for the small-scale residential installation, it is the interconnection requirement that is standardized that will resolve that.

That report you cited, if I recall properly, was a few years ago. Right now, the review of the actual standard will hopefully solve the problem. We obviously don't control the end result of a committee like that, but we're actively involved to make sure that it's harmonized with the U.S. side of interconnection, which is also under review right now.

[Geng Tan, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thanks.

Your centre has the expertise and technical resources for scientific research, studies, and R and D activities. When you work on an area like a smart grid, how closely do you work with the other stakeholders, for example, collaboration with other universities or engagement with the government? How do you provide or share information with the industries?

To me, your centre is still modest in size, so I don't think you can handle everything by yourself.

[Alexandre Prieur]

I agree that because of our size we don't handle everything. We generally deal with partnerships.

To give you a clear example, it was mentioned that we manage the Canadian smart grid action network. That's a way to transfer the information to the industry. That's an example of a mechanism; we have multiple mechanisms.

We generally try to target our research to do very specific.... As an example, we're doing research on demand response. We collaborate with some manufacturers and utilities. We host workshops or webinars to disseminate that to different audiences and stakeholders in Canada. We always try to make sure that our research is reusable and presented to a good stakeholder audience.

[Geng Tan, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Okay. My last question is a quick one.

I'm sure you recommend some policies to the decision-makers. You are part of NRCan but you are not the government, you are a research institute. How do you make sure that your recommendations or your resources can reach, be considered, or be made use of by the decision-makers?

[Dr. Judith Bossé]

Our research is decided and reviewed by peers within the department. Definitely, as you're well aware, there was the pan-Canadian framework on climate change. Numerous programs have been announced, and our work is aligned to support those programs. Whether we're talking about smart grids or off diesel, the way we're aligning our resources for research has to do with government policy, and we're just there in support.

Obviously, as you mentioned, we're small, so while we may have unique expertise or convening powers, we'll usually seek a partnership to expand our capacity.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Okay. You're out of time.

Just so everybody knows, we've lost Siemens. It may be permanent, but that remains to be seen. Apparently, we are trying to reconnect.

Mr. Schmale, go ahead.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

There are problems in Oakville.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

We have bad interties between here and Oakville.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I thought my area had bad Internet connection.

Thank you very much for appearing here today. It's always great to get the department's views on these matters.

As you probably know, we've had a number of meetings and we've heard from a wide variety of individuals on the issues of interties. Even though the study has been mostly about improving the flexibility of our grid across Canada through improved intertie connections, the general message that I think we are getting is that interties are only part of the solution. In fact, they are not on the top list of possible solutions. As you mentioned in your remarks, you are talking more about storage capabilities and—as Siemens mentioned as well—more flexible, local mini-grids.

My question is about these mini-grids. You mentioned a pilot project in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. What do you see the future of energy transmission looking like in Canada if things continue to go well in Summerside and it's spread across the country?

[Alexandre Prieur]

I think it's hard to tell how transmission will evolve, but it's definitely a tool that needs to continue to be used. Even though we try to optimize more locally, I think that transmission is part of the solution and it won't disappear soon. The diversity and the geographic spreading of resources allow us to compensate for the variability of new, renewable resources like wind and solar. Transmission will definitely be an asset.

If we look at the North American context, there are places where a large amount of hydro power is available, and these places could be seen as a kind of battery that will allow more integration of renewables. Transmission will definitely be useful for that. Even though the microgrid context, the small local grids, is becoming more important and more a part of the discussion, in the end a truly smart grid would still be microgrids interconnected and interacting through interties.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Is the pilot project in Summerside, P.E.I. mainly focused on residential rate users, or is it taking into account industrial as well?

[Alexandre Prieur]

There is some industrial in the P.E.I. project. If I recall properly, there is a dairy processing farm and some commercial also involved. I could follow up on that, if required.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I know that technology and innovation sometimes can be hard to predict, especially at the rate it's moving so quickly. Whether it be the SMRs or these new mini-grids, or what have you, can you foresee at some point handling a large-scale industrial operation manufacturing facility without any problems?

Where I'm going with this is.... We continue to hear about the interties, the cost it would take to expand them and the length of time it would take to possibly approve and build them. Technology is moving so fast. If we are going to get there first, I'm just trying to figure out whether there might be a different direction, rather than looking at this long-term intertie connection and billions of dollars.

[Alexandre Prieur]

Actually, the other tools that we are talking about—and please tell me if you want to clarify the question—are options that, in the end, will help interties, because if you have a better local optimization that goes up to a better interaction between the different interties, you will allow a better use of these interties. It's not necessarily a competition. It's more that a truly smart grid will be an optimized use of the available resources.

I'm not sure if I'm answering the question clearly. Basically, it's a complement tool.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

In Ontario we have a surplus of power, and a number of other provinces like Quebec and Manitoba have surpluses of power. Right now, especially in Ontario, we are selling that power to the United States, which seems to be a good market to go to.

Looking ahead, considering the forecast and the costs involved in the approval process and in getting facilities built within the intertie system, would we be smarter to focus our energy and resources on a market of possibly 306 million people to the south of us, rather than going east and west, where a number of provinces have surpluses in power and could maybe do a better business bilaterally rather than focusing on the interties in general?

[Alexandre Prieur]

I'm not sure I'm in a position to say if it's better to have east-west or north-south, but definitely increasing interties between provinces is something that makes sense technically. In the end, I guess it's a decision based on economics for the jurisdictions. Right now there's a study looking at the North American context to see, with future production and so on, how and where the interconnections should be improved.

I don't have a good answer on that, but I guess the Canadian study on that would also be useful.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Going back to the pilot project in—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Sorry, you're right on the button. You'll get back to that.

Mr. Cannings.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you for being here today.

I assume we still don't have Siemens.

Ms. Bossé, you talked about smart grids and moving towards a situation in which we have more control over actual consumption rather than just generation. I want to give you an example of my understanding of this.

A couple of years ago, I was talking to an electrical engineer who was working with clients around North America, and one of the examples he gave was about Tucson, where they have a lot of solar. He was helping the utility there work with large users such as Walmart. For example, if the sun went behind a cloud for half an hour or something and the generation dropped, they would compensate for that by getting energy users like Walmart to reduce their air conditioning load for a period of time instead of paying the extra amount to fire up some baseload generation, and I think he even said that Walmart would get a cheque for providing that service. That's an example of what these smart grid technologies would do.

Is that what you were talking about, and how do you see that working in Canada?

[Dr. Judith Bossé]

I'll turn to Alexandre. He has more expertise in this than I have.

[Alexandre Prieur]

The Walmart example of production is actually a good one. You go to the demand side and you use the flexibility that you have to help the grid. This is an example, I would say, of a truly smart grid application in which you don't just consume electricity blindly; you consume it when it's better for the grid. In the end, this could be done with financial incentives or it could be done with controls, but it's not necessarily about trying to control the loads. If you want to take your shower with hot water, you can still have hot water. It's more to use your water heater—as an example—as a storage unit and to play with the flexibility.

A lot of loads on the electrical grid have this flexibility inherent in their usage, so with the Walmart example, if you cut the air conditioning for a minute or two, it won't have a lot of impact on the store itself. If you cut it for two hours when it's very hot in the summer, then you will have impact. It's a kind of management of the variability. Right now electrical networks are doing that all the time. Now it's a question of using more of that flexibility that is out there, which can support the grid when it's needed.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

I had a bunch of questions for the witnesses from Siemens. Maybe I'll just ask them to you and get your comments on them.

They mentioned commercialization of smart grid technologies that perhaps we could incentivize in Canada. Could you give some examples of smart grid technologies that companies in Canada are working on and that the federal government could perhaps help with? Are we leaders in some of those technologies on a world scale?

[Alexandre Prieur]

Yes, I can try to answer that for Siemens.

I know that Siemens is working on software solutions to control that variability and that flexible potential that is out there. A company like Siemens is pretty big, and it's at many different levels in the system grid.

Basically, we want to have integration from the generation up to the end-user. Siemens named the “prosumer”. Talking of prosumers, I could mention another project in Ottawa: the GREAT-DR project. Basically, they will integrate photovoltaic generation with inverters, with demand response, with storage batteries—all together.

We definitely have companies in that area in Canada. Maybe it could be on the follow-up because I see thermostat companies, smart thermostats, inverter technology, all the intelligence behind the use of the predictive tools for utilities to plan how to use that flexibility. All these are areas that are well positioned in Canada. We have companies that work in that field.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

To finish off then.... They also mentioned something about shifting peak demand times. Is that part of that flexibility you were just mentioning? How does that work?