Calgary company wins funding to determine electrical battery storage in Medicine Hat

By Medicine Hat News on November 1, 2024.

@MedicineHatNews

A Calgary company has won grant funding in the “energy innovation challenge” and will determine where to best place electrical battery storage facilities on Medicine Hat’s network.

That would manage power flow on the city’s grid and act as backup power supply, according to Arcus Power head Dan Erhardt.

“We’ll identify locations where they can position primarily battery assets in the system that will solve resiliency, reliability, cost and sustainability,” said Erhardt. “We give them an optimization software that will run a simulation and determine where the assets should be placed.”

The company previously worked with Elemental Energy to develop storage management protocols for Elemental’s solar and battery facility at Chappice Lake, northeast of Medicine Hat.

City power officials have told the News in the past that they are interested in the potential of batteries and “dispatchable” power systems as a workaround to bottlenecks in the delivery system. That could avoid more costly line or transformer upgrades.

The award was announced at the Decentralized Energy Conference this month, though final details are not readily available.

The city dedicated up to $850,000 for six proposals in 2023. The total program is $2.4 million, including funds from Decentralized Energy think tank, Alberta Emissions Reduction among others, and 50 per cent funding support from Prairies Can, formerly Western Economic Diversification.

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