Capturing Wind With Thermal Energy Storage—Summerside’s Smart Grid Approach

The City of Summerside, PE, Canada, has 21 MW of wind capacity from which it meets almost half of its electric energy demand. At times, wind power exceeds what is needed locally. To avoid exporting the excess wind to the bulk grid at unfavourable prices, an innovative smart grid program for active control of thermal energy storage systems has been designed and implemented. On the utility-side, fibre has been wired through multiple feeders to coordinate real-time control of load. On the client-side, consumers are incentivized to install time-of-use or real-time controlled electric thermal storage or water heater units in place of oil appliances. To quantify program impacts, a system model is created for simulating many what-if scenarios using system data from 2013 to 2015. It is found that there are compelling, measurable benefits to utility and consumer finances, GHG emissions, and wind integration with little negative impact on utility operations.