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Last year’s sweltering summer strained the power grid as Ontarians struggled to keep cool.
But the province had a powerful ace up its sleeve.
Stored inside 278 giant lithium-ion batteries — each the size of a tractor-trailer — in rural Haldimand County was enough energy to instantly power tens of thousands of homes when temperature spiked and electricity demand surged.
“Some of those really hot days we had this past summer, Oneida was key to keeping the lights on,” said Scott Matthews, vice-president of projects with energy storage developer NRStor Inc., a partner in the Oneida Energy Storage Project along with majority owner Northland Power, Aecon, Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation and the Mississaugas of the Credit Business Corporation.
The 10-acre, $700-million battery farm near Jarvis, Ont., is the largest operation of its kind in Canada, able to return 250 megawatts of electricity to the grid each hour for four hours.
And while gas plants are slow to come online, power from batteries can flow at the press of a button. “This is just immediately available, any time,” Matthews told The Hamilton Spectator.
Having that flexibility helps, said a spokesperson for Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator, which manages the province’s power grid.
“The province faced the highest peak electricity demand since 2013 during this summer’s heat waves, and Oneida helped meet this demand by providing over 1,000 megawatt hours of energy,” spokesperson Michael Dodsworth told The Spectator.
Noting Oneida was the first large-scale battery storage facility to connect directly to Ontario’s power grid, Dodsworth said the project “represents a major step forward in making our grid more flexible and resilient at lowest cost.”
With nuclear reactors having to run all night as demand dips, Ontario is sometimes forced to pay cross-border consumers to absorb excess power from the grid. Storing that energy for later use at peak times makes more sense than giving it away, Matthews said.
And since Oneida also stores energy produced at off-peak hours by renewable sources like wind and solar, it is a cleaner power source than emission-heavy gas plants, he added.
That success has helped pave the way for new battery projects — including three more applications currently under review for Norfolk County.
Trio of projects pitched for Norfolk County in southern Ontario
When it came online last May, Oneida more than doubled the province’s energy storage capacity. With electricity usage projected to skyrocket in the coming decades, Queen’s Park wants to expand capacity in a hurry, and three Norfolk-area projects are under review by Ontario’s electricity system operator.
Skyline Clean Energy, a newcomer on the energy storage scene, wants to install 65 lithium-ion phosphate batteries the size of shipping containers on two acres of a solar farm the company owns outside Simcoe, Ont.
The humming sound produced by dozens of batteries feeding 30 megawatts of power to Hydro One’s distribution grid would be no louder than a library, Skyline’s director of asset management, Matt Kennedy, told Norfolk councillors at a presentation in November.
Noting this battery farm would fall within Simcoe’s wellhead protection area, Coun. Doug Brunton raised concerns about contaminants leaking into the town’s water supply should the batteries catch fire. Kennedy promised prompt soil testing and remediation should that happen.
Norfolk Resilient Generation Inc. is looking to produce up to 15 megawatts by burning natural gas in five reciprocating engines installed in shipping containers on a livestock farm outside Simcoe. The power would be stored on-site until needed on the grid, while heat from the engines would warm a hog nursery barn on the farm.
NRStor, after being turned down by the system operator for a 2023 project proposal in Simcoe, pitched a larger project last November that would store 150 megawatts on 20 acres of industrial land in the municipality. The Simcoe Battery Project would provide 1,200 megawatt hours to the Hydro One grid over an eight-hour period. The same Indigenous organizations that partnered with NRStor for the Oneida project would have a financial stake in this venture.
Norfolk’s economic development department says “energy storage technology represents a strategic infrastructure investment that supports energy reliability.” But some councillors have expressed concerns about noise and the risk of the lithium-ion batteries catching fire.
At a council meeting last year, members heard each temperature-controlled battery unit comes with a built-in fire suppression system, and the companies would pay for additional training for Norfolk’s volunteer fire department.
Large-scale battery storage facilities pose a different risk than smaller lithium-ion batteries found in scooters, e-bikes and the like, Deputy Fire Chief James Robertson told The Spectator in an email.
“Those types of installations are highly regulated and typically include built-in fire suppression and safety systems,” he said. “This is quite different from smaller hobby-related batteries.”
All three applicants have secured the municipality’s endorsement, which is required by the system operator. Each company offered Norfolk a sweetener in the form of annual financial contributions to the county’s coffers.
Norfolk wants to get $1,500 per kilowatt hour per year from any successful bidder, which would make Skyline’s contribution to the municipality around $900,000 over the 20-year life of the project, while NRStor’s larger facility could generate $225,000 annually for the municipality.
The system operator is expected to issue project approvals by the middle of June. The earliest any of the proposed facilities would connect to the grid is 2028.
Oneida ‘proved the hypothesis’
NRStor’s director of project development, Fariha Husain, told The Spectator none of this momentum would be happening had Oneida not proved it is possible — and profitable — to store power.
“The Oneida project basically opened the door to all these procurements,” she said.
The project is already exceeding NRStor’s revenue projections, Matthews added, which means money is flowing into Six Nations and Mississaugas of the Credit to fund schools and other local projects.
“You’re actually seeing those benefits roll into the community, which is amazing,” he said.
In a statement to The Spectator, Energy Minister Stephen Lecce also praised the inclusion of the Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation and the Mississaugas of the Credit Business Corporation as partners in Oneida, which he noted came in “ahead of schedule and under budget.”
“Collaboration between government, Indigenous partners and the private sector is the model that will further propel our economy forward with one of the cleanest electricity grids in the world,” Lecce said.
Oneida will not be the largest battery storage facility in Canada for long. A 411-megawatt project south of Ottawa in Edwardsburgh Cardinal is expected to come online next year, while Quebec-based energy company Boralex is building a 300-megawatt facility near Hagersville in Haldimand.
The Hagersville project has faced some opposition from residents, but Haldimand council has embraced the idea of battery storage, authorizing municipal staff to automatically issue letters of support to proponents who meet county-established criteria.
A 211-megawatt battery farm northeast of Jarvis is also under review in Haldimand, with three smaller projects in the public engagement stage.
Ontario is expanding the power grid even as Prime Minister Mark Carney suspended a Trudeau-era mandate last September that would have required 20 per cent of new vehicles sold in Canada to be zero-emission.
But Matthews said a slowdown in the sale of electric vehicles will not lessen Ontario’s “staggering” need for power.
Husain agreed, predicting the “electrification” of home heating systems such as heat pumps will continue to drive demand for low-cost electricity produced from renewable resources.
“We think electrification is key to meeting our climate goals, and that’s what this all stems from,” she said.
