‘Key missing piece’ to capacity challenge?

A Manitoba First Nation and former national chief are throwing their weight behind new-to-Manitoba energy storage methods amid projections of squeezed energy availability.

The province doesn’t have any utility scale battery energy storage systems. Through these, electricity is kept in electrochemical batteries until needed.

Volterra Technology creates the battery technology. It’s part of a new venture: Waywayseecappo Energy Alliance.

Other members include Waywayseecappo First Nation and Ishkonigan Inc., a consulting company founded by former Assembly of First Nations national chief Phil Fontaine. (Fontaine is a member of Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba.)

The alliance’s stated goals include guiding the development of 1,000 megawatt-hours of power — or one gigawatt-hour — through energy storage and other renewable energy projects, such as wind and solar.

The parties, plus a silent investor, have inked a development agreement.

“Battery energy storage (is our) primary leading factor,” said Charlie Curtis, Volterra Technology’s chief marketing officer. “We believe that it’s necessary for helping bring down consumer rates, to support surges, to help with winter peaks.”

Energy demand could more than double in Manitoba over the next two decades, Manitoba Hydro has stated.

The Crown corporation unveiled a 10-year road map for its grid in February. Its plan includes adding up to five MW of power via utility scale battery storage by 2034.

This would be a pilot project to test the method’s effectiveness, Hydro’s plan says. Batteries could be used during peak hours and charged during off hours.

Waywayseecappo Energy Alliance seeks to support Hydro’s plans, Curtis said.

It’s hoping to run a feasibility study for battery energy storage later this year. Leadership has circled locations around Brandon and on Waywayseecappo’s reserve lands, but they’re open to going where Hydro sees fit, according to Curtis.

He said the alliance is in talks with Manitoba Hydro.

The Crown corporation hasn’t received the alliance’s design plans, spokesperson Scott Powell wrote in a statement.

“Manitoba Hydro would have to review design plans to determine whether or not any proposed battery system would work in the context of our overall grid,” he wrote.

A feasibility study would likely cost “a few” hundred-thousand dollars, Curtis said. He didn’t share how much energy storage would be created.

Projects would be developed in stages as financial backers and partner companies join. Financing would come from a mix of private-sector groups, including publicly traded companies and pension-backed infrastructure capital, Curtis said.

Volterra is based in Toronto. It advertises itself as able to provide turnkey battery energy storage systems and to develop solar projects.

It was linked to Waywayseecappo through Fontaine, a mutual connection, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Waywayseecappo has roughly 1,822 people on reserve, southwest of Riding Mountain National Park.

The First Nation’s energy ambitions has drawn excitement from Climate Action Team Manitoba.

Battery storage is “a key missing piece” to address Hydro’s capacity challenges, said James Wilt, Climate Action Team Manitoba’s policy development manager.

The cycle of ramping up and down hydroelectric dams that’s required to integrate wind and solar on the grid can “create mechanical and ecological issues,” Wilt said. “Batteries … (don’t) impact those things. There’s a lot of potential here.”

Opting for a “relatively small” installation of battery energy storage to begin with, and monitoring performance, will allow Hydro to avoid significant risk, the Crown corporation wrote in its 2025 integrated resource plan.

It has said its existing water reservoirs provide energy storage. Batteries may compete with other demand reduction methods, limiting their usefulness, Hydro has expressed.

Wilt pointed to Ontario: the province built a battery energy storage facility that, according to a government news release, can power 250,000 homes for up to four hours during peak demand periods. Operations began in May.

For now, Hydro is accepting proposals from select Indigenous-led groups to build wind farms in southern Manitoba. It’s seeking 600 MW of power; 11 partnerships have qualified.

Proposals are due in July. Hydro is to announce its picks, and conditional power purchase agreements, in spring.

Waywayseecappo’s announcement comes too late for Hydro’s wind farm project.

“They are probably taking the right approach,” Wilt said of the First Nation, adding it faces less competition in the battery space.

The province’s plan to build a $3-billion combustion turbine facility in Brandon could shrink renewable energy project opportunities for Indigenous nations in the long-term, Wilt said, adding the current boom of interest in First Nation partnership is “positive.”

In a news release, Waywayseecappo Chief Murray Clearsky said the energy transition offers a “historic opportunity” with long-term economic benefits for First Nations.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com