West 5 Smart Grid Project

Lead Proponent

London Hydro

Project Background

This project enables the development of the West 5 Net-Zero Energy (NZE) community with a microgrid in London, Ontario, creating a showcase for sustainable communities which incur minimal negative impacts on the environment, and providing an example of Canadian leadership in the field of integrated smart energy system technologies. The overarching objective of the project is to successfully construct Canada’s first large-scale, fully integrated, net-zero energy community, to demonstrate net-zero energy’s feasibility, deploy it at the community level, and to inspire and inform widespread change across Canada’s construction industry towards net-zero energy.

Results

A feeder-tied (27.6kV) microgrid has been implemented to include nine buildings within its boundaries: West Five Bldg. 2 (Medical Services), 3 (Pet Services), 4 (Helio – MURB), 15(Retirement Apartments), 16 (Retirement Assisted Living), EVE Park A & B (Townhomes) and Phase-II C & D (Future). the final design with a single sectionalizing/synchronizing medium voltage (MV) switch was selected.

Approximately 2 MW of distributed solar PV arrays, including façade and carport systems, have been installed at West Five by this project, making for a total of over 3 MW of solar PV capacity within the microgrid boundary. All the buildings at West Five are of net zero design, with tighter envelopes, more insulation and reduced thermal bridging, increasing the thermal performance of the buildings and reducing the heating and cooling requirements. The buildings all use air source heat pumps with variable refrigerant flow and Energy Recovery Ventilation (ERV), to better balance space conditioning within the buildings and reduce the amount of electrical energy required to maintain a comfortable living space.

The 0.99MW/2MWh battery is used for increased resiliency. The battery will initially operate as an LDC asset with no metering, and is set up to have DC loads (EV chargers) and generation (DC-tied PV) added in the future.

Four dual-port in West Five Bldg. 2 and 4 and twelve single-port level II chargers in EVE Park Phase-1 were added to the site by this project, as well as a two stands, four-port level III charging system with 220 kWh of energy storage and CCS, CHAdeMO and NACS heads has been installed and commissioned near to West Five Building-3.

The microgrid is capable of black start during a grid outage and a seamless transition to islanding under normal conditions, in both cases able to synchronize and reconnect to the distribution feeder when conditions allow. The system can island for 1-2 hours before reconnecting to the grid. The microgrid can manage energy flows on the section of feeder it occupies, including loading or unloading the battery in response to excess or insufficient DER energy production. The capability of the microgrid to measure building loads, PV production and grid status can manage islanding functionality within the microgrid and provide controls to block PV production in such a case.

West Five is now the first pilot on the Ontario grid for Community Net Metering (CNM), where multiple properties under a single owner are allowed to move net metering credits from buildings with excess credits to the electricity billing of buildings not producing excess credits.

Benefits to Canada

Benefits to Canadians:

• PV production and EV charging are now reducing GHG emissions by 269 tons of CO2 annually. Particulate matter and other types of emissions are reduced due to the EV-friendly nature of this site and the absence of natural gas combustion in these all-electric buildings.
• Training of Highly Qualified Persons (HQP) and job creation in an innovative and transformative field.
• Provides a valuable case study in net-zero energy development, microgrids, and partnerships with municipalities which can lead to significant energy and emissions reductions, and improved community benefits.
• Provides a replicable example of how to improve the underlying energy system topology and optimally integrate diverse and distributed energy resources in a community development.

Benefits to local stakeholders:

• West Five's occupants will enjoy a more reliable grid with reduced energy and environmental costs. Visitors for business, leisure or retail will benefit from EV charging capabilities and having the opportunity to learn firsthand about sustainable building practices and technology, in turn creating awareness and local interest.
• Increased energy efficiency awareness and consumer engagement amongst residents of the community, and other utility customers.
• Support the reliable functioning of the electrical grid by helping to reduce congestion issues, deferring costly upgrades and increasing utilization of existing assets.
• Reducing the financial risk to a municipal utility, while allowing them to build capacity and innovate with new technology and business models.
• Scalable improvements to community development can benefit the regional economy and competitiveness of local industry.

Next Steps

• The microgrid assets will initially be utilized by London Hydro to explore ways to improve feeder performance with the battery supporting smoothing of energy flows, improving power quality and islanding the microgrid as needed for maintenance and unanticipated outages.
• Continue R&D in expanding the technology and capabilities for the microgrid, such as including a level 3 EV charging facility, as the battery is designed for future support of public fast charging.
• Active ongoing commercialization efforts for microgrids in the Canadian market for municipalities, mining operations and remote areas.

The Community Net Metering (CNM) pilot at West Five is expected to help Ontario develop a policy framework for adopting CNM throughout Ontario.