Understanding Ontario’s energy-storage opportunity with Enel X: Part 3

Algoma Orchards gets great financial benefits from an Enel X solution.

In this four-part article, Enel X North America discusses how electricity costs can be managed with energy storage in Ontario. This third part deals with how the company has been working with Algoma Orchards to create a money-saving energy-storage solution. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Inside a successful project

Algoma Orchards, a family-owned commercial orchard in the Durham region of Ontario, is dedicated to serving its community with quality produce and products. With a state-of-the-art apple cider facility processing thousands of gallons of cider and juice and an apple-packing centre shipping products to grocery stores and its own retail locations across Canada, the company’s high Global Adjustment (GA) charges have long been a challenge. However, as a food manufacturer, any effort to reduce energy costs would need to avoid disrupting production or compromising the quality of its products.

Since 2010, Algoma Orchards has partnered with Enel X to earn payments through Ontario’s demand response (DR) program—which provides incentives to large energy users that voluntarily reduce their demand when called upon by grid operators. That has long made the company keenly aware of both the financial opportunity of strategic demand management and the positive impact it can have on grid reliability. While Algoma Orchards receives payments for its participation, the company has long seen DR as a way to help support the local economy and environment. By reducing demand at the times when the grid needs it the most, the company helps to support the grid’s reliability and reduces its reliance on fossil fuels. Expanding its demand-side management practices to address GA charges would enable Algoma Orchards to have a greater impact on the community while also significantly reducing its annual energy costs.

The first step to reducing GA charges is predicting when the Ontario grid is most likely to experience peak demand. To accomplish this, Algoma Orchards participates in Enel X’s system peak predictor program, which uses a complex predictive model to assess the daily likelihood of a system peak event on the grid based on an analysis of weather information and energy market data. Through the program, which currently provides insight to more than 1,100 sites located in different markets across North America, Enel X develops a custom demand reduction plan for each customer and delivers daily notifications of the likelihood of a system peak event in their region. On the occasions when the likelihood is high, customers enact their load curtailment plan to reduce their GA charges. This approach helped Enel X customers in Ontario save a combined $15 million on GA charges alone last year.

Coming in Part 4: More on Enel X’s partnership with Algoma.

For more information, contact Enel X.

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