Saint Johners join the effort to shave the peak
Earlier this month, Saint John Energy did something we have never done before – alerted our customers to a looming peak in electricity demand and asked them to reduce their energy consumption.
By Carl Ozkaynak, March 24, 2021
We did this because peaks in energy demand are costly – both for the planet and the pocketbook.
As a company committed to the environment and to keeping rates low for our customers, we have been doing all we can to tackle the problem of peak energy demand.
Source: NBPower. Our main supplier created this simple visual to help understand the peak. This graph is representative of what occurs during peak electricity times in NB. The actual allocations of electricity generation and amounts are dependent upon many factors including weather, demand, availability and market prices and conditions
Until now, it has largely been a problem we focused on internally – employing different technologies and techniques to smooth out that peak.
When our system operators saw a frigid cold snap bearing down on Saint John, we saw an opportunity: ask Saint Johners for help.
So we sent out “peak alert” notifications, asking our customers to cut back their energy consumption the morning of March 2, when we knew we would see a significant increase in demand for power.
We asked them to do just what they could for a few hours. True to the spirit of Saint John, our customers were eager to help.
Thousands of our customers joined in that day to make small but meaningful changes to their power consumption. They told us they delayed using their stove, put off doing laundry until later in the day and turned down their thermostats by a couple of degrees in rooms they were not using.
With their help, we were able to shave more than 14 megawatts off the peak that day – saving more than $210,000 in peak demand charges.
This is a significant step, and it’s just the beginning. Imagine as more Saint Johners become aware of the issue and join in the effort to lower carbon emissions and save money what a difference this could make.
“Everything we can do to shave the peak is better for all of us.”
Everything we can do to shave the peak is better for all of us.
New Brunswick often relies on power plants running on fossil fuels to provide the extra power needed to satisfy peak demand in winter – energy generation that can increase carbon dioxide emissions.
At Saint John Energy, we supply power to our customers that we buy from our wholesale supplier, NB Power. By lowering peak demand in Saint John, we can help NB Power lower its emissions.
Publicly available figures from NB Power* suggest almost half a tonne – 0.498 tonnes – of carbon emissions are avoided for every megawatt of peak demand shaved during the annual peak hour, which is almost double the normal, off-peak generation carbon intensity.
An opportunity to help every month
And because peak energy demand is expensive, curbing it also saves money – for NB Power, for Saint John Energy, and for our customers.
“Peak demand charges – the highest in Canada – can amount to more than $3 million a month, and consume nearly one-third of our budget.”
Those peak demand charges – which we are told are among the highest in Canada – can amount to more than $3 million a month, and today consume nearly one third of our entire budget for electricity purchases.
It is also worth mentioning that the same day as we were collectively trying to lower the peak, the wind was blowing with such strength that if our Burchill wind farm was built and running, it would have been generating at full capacity.
That would have created almost enough electricity to power the entire west side of Saint John with local low-cost, renewable energy – dramatically reducing the peak.
As a local energy company that prides itself on our commitment to sustainability and to keeping rates for our customers low, we take the consequences of peak energy seriously.
At Saint John Energy, we are pioneering an intelligent electricity grid for Saint John. Our smart grid already allows us to better predict and respond quickly to system events like peaks in demand.
As the deep freeze on March 2 took hold, we had already taken a number of steps to reduce power load in ways that customers would not notice – technologies and techniques that we often employ to ease demand.
Technologies like the Tesla Megapack. The massive battery allows us to store up energy to deploy at times when it is needed most.
We dialed down the voltage at our substations to ease energy draw. While the change is imperceptible to our customers, turning down the voltage has a dramatic effect on the peak.
To better understand what peak power is that motivated our #PeakAlert earlier this month, take a minute for this quick video by @NB_Power - you might even recognize one of these local kids! #poweringourfuture https://t.co/cV2mT8il5F
— Saint John Energy (@SJENERGY) March 16, 2021
We were also able to tap into the power generated from methane at the Crane Mountain landfill site, which for years has had a generator that converts methane into electricity.
And we were able that day to tap into generators owned by the City of Saint John used to supply backup power for Saint John Water and have to run monthly for proper maintenance. We’ve worked with the City to coordinate that cycle with peak times.
Having done all that we could, we turned to the people of Saint John and asked for help. Help they did, and we’re grateful.
We plan on sharing alerts about looming peaks every month. Customers who would like to join in on the effort can log into their Saint John Energy accounts to learn more about peak demand and sign up to receive peak alerts.
Powering Our Future
As we build out our smart grid for Saint John, managing the peak will become an automated process – the grid itself will be able to manage the peak by shifting energy demand through the system in ways our customers won’t need to act on or even notice. (More on that in a future blog post.)
As more people understand why we are doing this and how it helps, we hope that they too will want to join in the effort to shave the peak.
Thank you, Saint John.
Carl Ozkaynak is the Director of Smart Grid at Saint John Energy and is responsible for Grid Modernization, Information and Operational Technology, Digital Transformation, and Digital Delivery. Carl has years of extensive experience and has spent his career delivering Smart Grid and Digital Transformation Projects across North America.