EPCOR recently deployed a Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) together with a 30,350 panel, 13.6MW solar farm and 4MW/8.9MWh battery energy storage system at the E.L. Smith Water Treatment Plant. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada’s Smart Grid Program.
DERMS allows EPCOR to generate, store and distribute solar power to the treatment plant or the provincial power grid, and to partially supplant power from other sources, eliminating the greenhouse emissions associated with those power sources. A microgrid control system maximizes the use of the power generated by the solar farm by storing the excess and addressing power quality issues, while providing additional resilience to the Water Treatment Plant. The system is integrated with the DERMS, which provides grid level monitoring including real-time constraint management, grid optimization and improved asset utilization.
The deployment and integration of technologies like this is part of an overall societal transformation to a greater use of smart grid systems. This will enable increased use of Distributed Energy Resources as well greater customer choice and greenhouse gas mitigation. EPCOR is on an accelerated pathway to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 with a 50% reduction company-wide by 2025.
