Alectra Utilities has chosen the Enbala Virtual Power Plant (VPP) solution, with a goal of integrating the distributed energy resources (DERs) that are currently a part of the utility’s existing microgrid, along with those that will be added in the future.
Alectra is the 2nd largest municipally owned utility in North America. The utility deployed an innovative microgrid project in 2013 to address the challenge of asset renewal in large-scale electricity distribution systems and to demonstrate that renewable energy can effectively help to address the growing demand for electricity.
The goal of the new Enbala-based VPP solution is to control the existing microgrid in the utility’s headquarters in Vaughn, Ontario, and enable Alectra to scale the project to incorporate increasingly more DERs.
The VPP technology being deployed is based upon the Enbala Engine, a platform for distributed energy optimization and control. The VPP will integrate batteries, loads, EV charging and other DERs at the existing headquarters microgrid, with a plan to expand to encompass additional customer DERs, including homes and C&I customers with solar and/or storage, banks of EV charging stations on commercial property and customer microgrids.
“The Enbala team is excited to be a part of this forward-thinking project,” said Enbala President and CEO Arthur (Bud) Vos. “We’re confident that the constraint-based optimization and control capabilities of our VPP will help Alectra achieve its goal of more consistent availability of capacity to provide grid services, along with the ability to achieve greater value from end-customer assets.”
