Sunbank is a Joint Venture With Samsung Renewables and the City of Summerside
OTTAWA, ON / ACCESSWIRE / February 7, 2024 / BluWave-ai announced today the signing of a contract with the City of Summerside (PE, Canada) to deploy and activate its AI-driven Smart Grid Optimizer for Summerside’s Solar Farm: Sunbank.
Sunbank boosts the city’s renewable generation with 21.6 MW of solar and a 10 MW/20 MWH hour battery, augmenting a 12 MW wind farm supplying the city. Integrated with Microsoft Azure, the cloud-based software solution from BluWave-ai optimizes the operation of Sunbank to make the most of available renewables, which cuts net energy costs and reduces the carbon footprint of the city.
Depending on weather conditions, solar and wind energy generation is highly variable and, as such, is not dispatchable. Dispatchable generation can be requested to supply needs at short notice to handle peaks in demand and shortfall in other supply. Most power grids today use dispatchable gas-fired and other fossil-fuel-fired power plants or, in Summerside’s case, importing energy from the mainland via subsea cable, which is generated with a mix of non-renewable and renewable sources. With a maximum peak load of about 35 MW, Summerside can manage most of this peak demand with clean energy if it is made dispatchable.
Energy storage such as Sunbank’s provides the capability to capture energy during surplus periods and release when needed to meet system demand. Intelligent control is needed to maximize the use of renewable energy, predicting demand and generation ahead of time to optimally schedule charging. This includes discharging energy storage and any shortfall required from other sources to avoid curtailing or wasting that energy. This is where BluWave-ai’s Smart Grid Optimizer comes into play.
BluWave-ai and the City of Summerside’s collaboration has expanded from North America’s first AI-enabled energy dispatch announced in 2019 to the first end-to-end AI-optimized smart grid in North America in 2021. This integrates control of local energy assets including solar and energy storage at the city’s sports arena complex, which delivered a 100% solar-powered concert in 2022. With this contract, the solution integrates the utility-scale Sunbank solar and energy storage facility, providing more effective dispatchable clean energy capacity to meet the city’s needs.
“With the Canadian Federal Government’s target for net zero electricity grids by 2035, a key to retiring natural gas peaking plants and coal-fired thermal plants, will be to manage fluctuating renewables in the context of the needs of the grid,” said Devashish Paul, CEO BluWave-ai. “Leveraging 26 USPTO patents filed in the area of grids and optimization embedded in our AI products, this project at Sunbank will be a key AI-enabled battery dispatch project applicable to smart grids across Canada by 2035.”
Summerside’s state-of-the art smart grid with BluWave-ai’s Smart Grid Optimizer showcases a solution that is applicable worldwide as system operators and power utilities strive to build in more renewables to reduce fossil-fuel generation and corresponding emissions. With increased renewable capacity in the system, responding to demand peaks and avoiding curtailing renewable energy during lower demand periods is a significant problem. For example, California curtails about five percent of its solar and wind energy each year: clean energy that would have powered 370,000 homes in the state. In addition to the capabilities in operation at Summerside, the Smart Grid Optimizer can be augmented with BluWave-ai EV Everywhere to corral the rapidly growing, large capacity of energy storage from EVs and behind-the-meter EV chargers connected within electricity distribution grids to further uptake renewables with AI-managed active charging.
“As the global conversation at COP28 centered on reducing worldwide emissions and addressing climate change, the City of Summerside has proactively implemented substantial measures to greatly diminish our carbon footprint. Our collaboration with Bluwave-ai showcases the pioneering end-to-end AI-controlled smart grid in our city, deploying cutting-edge innovation to deliver tangible outcomes in emission reductions and energy cost savings. The integration of Sunbank into our operations marks a significant stride towards achieving net zero energy for our community,” said Dan Kutcher, Mayor of the City of Summerside.
“Wind and solar farms all over North America need to be turned into effective dispatchable energy assets to maximize use of clean energy,” said Thomas Triplet, Senior Director of Engineering, BluWave-ai. “With a combination of Sunbank’s renewable energy expertise and BluWave-ai’s AI-driven optimization, we can provide this capability, reducing the reliance of electricity systems on fossil-fuel generation without sacrificing capacity to handle demand peaks.”
