Drive through the small southern Ontario town of Jarvis and you'll pass by a gas station, a microbrewery, a few local restaurants and shops — and as you head out into the countryside, Canada's biggest battery.
When its rows of stacked Tesla-made batteries are switched on next summer, the $800 million Oneida energy storage plant will be able to hold up to 250 megawatts (MW) of electricity, enough to meet the peak power demand of a city of around 200,000 people.
The project now undergoing commissioning tests is in the vanguard of a wider strategy to upgrade Ontario’s strained electricity grid for the future. Industrial-scale battery plants will be key to handling an historic boom in demand forecast for the next 25 years, much of which will be met with renewable energy as the province’s low-carbon economy takes shape.
Once powered up, Oneida will work as a back-up power bank for Ontario’s grid, charging up and storing energy in off-peak hours and releasing it when demand is high. The Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), which oversees Ontario’s transmission system, expects power demand to grow 75 per cent by 2050 to meet the needs of decarbonizing key industries like mining and steel, as well as millions of new office buildings, homes and electric vehicles.
Canada took an important step in 2023 to spur construction of a fleet of energy storage projects through a tax write-down called the clean technology investment tax credit, which provides a 30 per cent tax refund to any battery plant brought into operation before 2033.
The pioneering Oneida project had to overcome its share of challenges before launching more than five years after funding negotiations began.
Canada is lagging behind many other countries in building a network of grid-connected battery storage facilities. Even after Oneida is switched on, the country will rank tenth in the world for storage capacity, far behind market leaders China, the United States and the United Kingdom.
“Ontario is a market where there is going to be a high penetration of renewables and the grid, as it is, can only go so far," said Michelle Chislett, executive vice president for onshore renewables at Northland Power, Oneida’s biggest investor.
The variability of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, influenced by daily and seasonal weather conditions, make batteries an important part of the solution to developing a stable, clean power-fed future grid.
“You need something to smooth the generation profile,” Chislett told Canada’s National Observer.
“Ontario is a market where there is going to be a high penetration of renewables and the grid, as it is, can only go so far," said Michelle Chislett, Northland Power's executive vice president for onshore renewables.
At the core of the Oneida project are 278 Tesla lithium-ion megapacks sitting in neat rows on a four-hectare plot of land on the outskirts of Jarvis, Ont., about 110 kilometres south of Toronto.
The Oneida project will be able to charge and discharge 1,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity a year onto the grid, the biggest in a fleet of 26 battery-based energy storage facilities planned in Ontario to handle power from future renewables, nuclear and hydro sources.
Oneida is a first for Northland, which until now specialized in wind and solar projects.
Industrial-scale test case
For the province, the project is an important test case. An industrial-scale battery that will provide on-demand power will allow the provincial utility to cut gas-fired power demand and its associated costs during peak periods of power usage. That could reduce natural gas-related costs by $760 million a year, and also cut Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions by 4.1 million tonnes — the equivalent of removing 40,000 cars off the roads annually.
Canada will need a 1,500 per cent increase in battery-based energy storage capacity by 2030 to absorb the expected growth in electricity demand, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), an industry research group.
This scale of ambition is a positive – if tardy – step, according to Linda Nazar, a University of Waterloo professor who is also Canada research chair in solid state energy materials and specializes in battery chemistry.
“A good start,” she said. “But Canada is way behind on battery technology development and electric vehicles and other technologies” key to the energy transition, she told Canada’s National Observer.
The federal government “does not seem to think that energy storage for the grid is an important matter, but they always figure things out about 20 years later,” Nazar said.
"Ontario has finally woken up to the fact that we are going to have serious issues created by growth in electricity demand and we really do need much more grid storage."
The province is home to more than a third of Canadians and now faces challenges in rolling out enough new battery storage to balance its fast-expanding grid.
The province has only held two auctions for energy storage projects in recent years. The first in 2022 added nearly 900 MW of battery plant capacity to the provincial grid. The winners of the latest auction to be announced next year will generate contracts for 5,000 MW of energy production and storage facilities to be built in the coming years.
The 20-year power capacity deal for Oneida was agreed by Northland and the IESO outside the formal procurement process. It is based on a fixed-price contract covering 60 per cent of yearly revenue and the remainder coming from power sold on the wholesale market.
Taken together, Northland expects a fully operating Oneida plant to contribute about $45 million a year to its balance sheet from now until 2030.
"We believe this helps the deployment of battery energy storage systems by improving future revenue visibility," said BNEF analyst Isshu Kikuma.
"Big drop" in battery costs
Building battery storage facilities in Ontario is also becoming more economic as the cost of lithium-ion batteries continues to fall: prices dropped 14 per cent between 2022-2023 to a record low of US$139 per kilowatt-hour, according to BNEF data.
"We saw a big battery cost drop in 2023, and this trend is continuing this year due to fierce competition among Chinese battery manufacturers and suppliers," Kikuma told Canada’s National Observer.
While batteries may be getting cheaper for now, volatile markets for lithium — the key and most expensive ingredient in Li-ion batteries — still weighed on Northland’s final investment decision on the project.
"We had to renegotiate the deal with IESO several times because lithium prices were all over the place. It really tested our stamina,” Chislett said.
Eventually, the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) stepped in last year with a unique $535 million loan package to de-risk the project by indexing the loans to lithium prices to absorb fluctuations in the market.
The CIB funding — about $165 million in short-term construction financing and a $370 million long-term loan — was needed for a first-of-its-kind facility in Canada, where private sector lenders can be risk-averse.
Talks to secure the CIB loan began in 2020 and were led by NRStor Inc., a Toronto-based energy storage company.
The fact this was the first major battery storage project in Canada was a challenge in the negotiations, said Mihskakwan James Harper, NRStor’s business development manager who was on the team that secured the CIB loan.
"First, we had to prove that energy storage would be cheaper than natural gas" to supply power during peak demand periods, he said, "and that battery plants like Oneida could be central to balancing a reliable transmission system.”
"Complex investment"
For Northland, investing $600 million in a project that had been in development for several years was tricky, Chislett said. The company had to secure financing for most of the construction costs and take a 72 per cent equity stake in Oneida.
The kilowatt per hour price IESO agreed to pay for Oneida electricity has not been disclosed, but Chislett said it was competitive and in line with other battery storage projects.
"This was a complex investment for the partners,” said Chislett. “So we had to strike that balance between being not too aggressive on our price assumptions, but not too conservative.”
Oneida is also touted as a model for partnering with Indigenous communities living near future energy storage projects. NRStor is a 50/50 partner with the economic development corporation of the Six Nations of the Grand River in southwestern Ontario where the battery plant is located.
"This type of partnership will be a great example as it contributes to both energy transition and community engagement," said Kikuma, pointing to the social impact and other “non-price” considerations, including First Nations involvement, factored into the project’s total cost of energy production.
"Market participants can learn from the Oneida project," he added.
Now with Oneida set to power up in 2025 and a second procurement on the horizon in Ontario, grid operators in other provinces are taking a closer look at energy storage solutions, Harper said.
"We know it influenced and inspired how other provinces are approaching energy storage now,” he said. “We want to continue the momentum.”
Oneida battery energy storage plant at a glance
Location: Jarvis, Haldiman county, Ontario
Size: 250 MW) / 1,000 MWh (MW indicates how much power the system can deliver at any moment, while MWh determines how long it can deliver that power)
Developer: Northland Power, with partners NRStor, the Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation, and construction contractor AECON.
Battery supplier: Tesla Inc.
Switch-on date: mid-2025
Comments
"… as the province’s low-carbon economy takes shape …"
did i miss something? what i didn't miss was Ford killing all the alt energy projects, pumping thousands of billions into obsolete nukes, and paving the way for the increasing success of his friends in the fracked gas business.
"low carbon economy"??????
Oh, National Post, so close!
You got the difference between energy (Megawatt-HOURS) and power (Megawatts) and even explained it again at the bottom summary. Almost nobody gets that most articles on energy confuse power and energy.
So close...until you mentioned "$139/kilowatt-hour" and looked innumerate again.
Kilowatt-hours, as anybody who's paid a home bill knows, are measured in pennies. That should have been $139/MEGAwatt-hour. Sigh.
Just for anybody wanting clarification, the ACTUAL unit of energy is called 'Joules' (pron. same as "jewels") and there are 3.6 MJ in a kilowatt-hour, 3.6 GJ in a Megawatt-hour. So when Fortis wants $10 for a GJ of gas (delivered), and it's $139 for 3.6 GJ of electrical energy ($38/GJ) you see the headwinds that electrification is facing, against gas. If heat pumps were any less than 300% efficient, they'd be a non-starter.
I thought that number was kinda funny too. The last winning bid in an auction for power in Alberta I saw (about 7 years ago) was $34 per unit (mega-something...) for a wind project, which outcompeted both gas and coal.
Those were the rosy days before Danielle Smith decided a future economy and thousands of jobs were less important than ideology.
RB wrote: "Oh, National Post, so close!"
National Post, National Observer, National Enquirer … What's the difference?
$US139 per kWh (BNEF) is the correct figure.
But it's not the cost of producing or delivering electricity from battery storage to the consumer.
It's the upfront one-time initial installation cost of the storage capacity that permits a single charge/discharge of 1 kWh.
$139 is the cost per kWh of storage capacity installed.
"Price per kWh is your upfront battery cost."
https://www.renogy.com/blog/how-much-does-a-lithium-ion-battery-cost
The actual costs per kWh delivered to consumers depends on how many charge/recharge cycles the battery can perform in a given time period / over its entire lifetime.
So we would need to know:
a) the total project cost, including the batteries and other on-site infrastructure, such as transformers;
b) the total number of charge/recharge cycles per year;
c) the lifetime of the facility in years.
If a 1,000 MWh capacity (250 MW x 4 hours = 1 million kWh) battery ensemble costs $139 per kWh, the cost of the batteries ensemble alone = 1 million kWh * $139/kWh = $139 million.
The Oneida energy storage plant in S. Ontario costs $800 million.
So the battery cost is only a fraction (1/6) of the total project cost.
Considering the battery costs alone, if the Oneida project were able to charge and discharge 1,000 MWh [250 MW x 4 hrs] [= 1 million kWh] only once in its lifetime, that production would cost 1 million kWh * $139/kWh = $139 million ÷ 1 million kWh = $139/kWh consumer cost.
If the Oneida project were able to charge and discharge 1,000 MWh [250 MW x 4 hrs] [= 1 million kWh] only once per year (as The Observer article wrongly implies), and the facility lasts 10 years, that production would cost 1 million kWh * $139/kWh = $139 million ÷ 10 yrs ÷ 1 million kWh = $13.90/kWh consumer cost.
If the Oneida project were able to charge and discharge 1,000 MWh [250 MW x 4 hrs] [= 1 million kWh] only once per yr, and the facility lasts 25 years, that production would cost 1 million kWh * $139/kWh = $139 million ÷ 25 yrs ÷ 1 million kWh = $5.56/kWh consumer cost.
If the Oneida project were able to charge and discharge 1,000 MWh [250 MW x 4 hrs] [= 1 million kWh] once a day, and the facility lasts 25 years, that production would cost 1 million * $139 = $139 million ÷ (25 yrs * 365 days) ÷ 1 million kWh = $0.015/kWh or 1.5 cents/kWh consumer cost.
So the Observer's figure re the cost of battery capacity installed is correct.
But the following statement is incorrect:
"The Oneida project will be able to charge and discharge 1,000 MWh [= 1 million kWh] of electricity a year onto the grid."
If you run a 250 MW (power = rate) generator for 1 hr, that's 250 MWh of total energy production/discharge.
If you run a 250 MW (power = rate) generator for 4 hrs, that's 1000 MWh of total energy production/discharge.
If true, The Observer's statement would imply that the generator runs just once a year. Obviously incorrect.
Overall, this is very good news, though not without some caveats.
Lithium ion (lithium, manganese, nickel + cobalt) is not an ideal chemistry, though is does have good energy density. This chemistry with a liquid electrolyte can be susceptible to dendrite growth and sometimes a short circuit and fire, which, though rare, the media focuses on with sensationalistic intensity. This battery array will likely come with substantial HVAC requirements (heaters and AC for the various seasons) as well as foam fire suppression systems. Lithium-iron-phosphate is the go-to substitute because it is more stable and safer, though its energy density is somewhat less than L-ion.
The latest research uses lithium hybrids with sodium or silicon. These batteries are stable and have excellent cold weather performance and energy density. They are lighter in weight and therein vehicles can bank more on board to increase vehicle range well over 600 km, though weight is not a big concern in stationary power storage. They are just coming off the lab tables and into the commercial arena, mainly in China, so the prices will need time to decrease in conjunction with mass production.
L-ion and LFP battery packs with wind and solar installations will certainly assist in stabilizing entire grids, but these chemistries hold a charge only on a daily basis. If these battery packs were combined with, for example, iron air batteries, the storage capacity will be spread over four days and offer amazing stability during power disruptions or scheduled maintenance somewhere else on the grid. Flow batteries using zinc bromine offer very long term storage, essentially months until drawdown. Supercapacitors can offer controlled power surges when needed and, I believe, long term storage with low losses. Nuclear, hydro and geothermal will add even more stable base load capability over any given period of time, from hours to years, and at any scale.
When considered altogether, these technologies make coal and gas seem positively like the products of the Satanic mills they came from in the 19th Century.
It's great that the federal government helped fund this project. Unfortunately, the Tesla brand comes with batteries likely made in China vs Canadian or US sourced materials, and is further laden with billionaire Elon Musk's corrupted political shenanigans and terrible human resources skills at the management level of his companies.
With a little informed imagination the feds could develop a national strategy for low carbon industries. It could back it with substantial funding for R&D into Canadian solutions that can be affordably used at home as well as exported. This strategy can parallel the fossil fuel industry; essentially start building out things like a national clean energy grid and electrified rail transport using home grown materials and tech and ignore carbon interests. Is there something wrong with campaigning on investing in a new industrial strategy and couching it in terms of tens of thousands of new jobs and economic spinoffs that would generate big returns? This could be done without referring to fossil fuels at all, especially the hundreds of billions in subsidies it receives, part of which could be quietly diverted into the new policy.
Is that too complicated for the federal government parties that are centrist and progressive?