In what it says is a world first, Toronto Hydro is testing pole-mounted energy storage devices that can supplement electricity during peak hours in homes.
In a pilot project, a compact white box, a little bigger than a suitcase, has been mounted about six metres up a hydro pole in the Keele St. and Sheppard Ave. W. area. It’s paired with a 50 kilowatt transformer that typically powers about 12 houses.
“It’s a lithium ion battery just like the one in your cell phone, and it’s equivalent to 2,000 cell phone batteries,” said Gary Thompson, supervisor of engineering at Toronto Hydro.
These units, each storing 15 kilowatt hours of energy, aren’t meant to provide bulk electricity to power houses but to provide support for a grid by making it more efficient, Thompson said.
They are charged during off-peak hours, around 1 a.m. or 2 a.m., and when a transformer begins to see its biggest load during peak hours, the storage unit will supplement some of the energy, he said.
This means that some of Toronto Hydro’s aging assets won’t have to be replaced soon, he said.
Just imagine plugging in a new Tesla car in your house, said Bala Venkatesh, director of Centre of Urban Energy at Ryerson University, which is the lead on this project.
There’s a sudden demand in the electricity of your house when the car is charging. So what this pole-mounted storage unit can do is store energy during off-peak hours. Peaks in energy demands, like when Tesla cars and other electric appliances are plugged in, will be mitigated through that energy storage device, Venkatesh said.
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