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Page 2: Up close at Hydro One >> Editor's note: Earlier this month SGN Managing Editor Liz Enbysk participated in a smart grid media tour hosted by the Ontario provincial government. With journalists from around the world, she visited utilities, smart grid companies and research labs. This is one of her reports.
By Liz Enbysk
SGN Managing Editor
We pulled up to the PowerStream head office on the outskirts of Toronto – a classy looking LEED Gold Certified facility. PowerStream is the second largest municipally owned local distribution company in Ontario, with 335,000 electricity customers. Of those, 37,000 are commercial and industrial, 298,000 residential. PowerStream also serves 200,000 water customers.
, "A lot of places around the world talk smart grid," CEO Brian Bentz started off. "We have done it." PowerStream customers all have smart meters and are on mandated time-of-use rates. . The company is running an EV charging station pilot with Nissan and sees big opportunities with EVs, among them load transfer. . PowerStream started a solar PV generation business in 2010, leasing rooftop space from owners of commercial buildings. The utility connects the systems to the grid and sells the generated power back to the government. PowerStream also runs a living solar lab on its own rooftop, testing seven different PV panels.
. The utility promotes a number of energy conservation programs, including demand response for large business customers. Its 2012 plans run the gamut, from energy storage to operational data usage. . The PowerStream view of the smart grid, its executives say, is where technologies and customers connect. . "It's no good to advance the utility, putting the latest toys or electronics into service," suggests John Mulrooney, PowerStream's Director of Smart Grid Technologies. "We have a mandate that smart grid has to benefit the customer."
One of PowerStream's partners is Survalent Technology, a Toronto-area company that provides real-time smart grid management systems, including in PowerStream's control room where we watched screens light up and technicians respond to a small outage in a residential area.
Survalent VP Young Ngo told us his company has over 50 years of experience in the control room and operational environment with SCADA software and an alphabet soup of capabilities – DMS, OMS, SA, DA, DR. Of SCADA-enabled utilities in Ontario, 80% of them are using Survalent solutions. But Survalent, targeting the municipal and cooperative space, has over 400 systems deployed in 23 countries. Some 250 customers are in the U.S., but Ngo says they're currently seeing substantial growth in Latin America.
Page 2: Up close at Hydro One >>
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