October 3, 2016 – Nova Scotia Power is teaming up with Tesla and Opus One Solutions as part of a multi-year pilot project to integrate new technologies onto the province’s grid as the utility continues its transition to renewable energy sources.

The project, known as the “Intelligent Feeder Project”, will involve installing a grid-size battery (Tesla Powerpack) and up to 10 residential batteries (Tesla Powerwalls) on a feeder line powered by a wind turbine or other distributed energy generator. Sensors will be placed on the feeder line to monitor and gather information about local system activity and, using Opus One’s GridOS real-time intelligent energy networking platform, will be analyzed and fed back to NS Power’s control centre.

“This project will help us balance the variability of renewable energy generation, minimize power outages for customers and use our generation resources to their maximum efficiency,” the utility says.

NS Power says it reached 27% renewable generation in 2015 from just 7% in 2007 and has a requirement of 40% by 2020.

“We see major promise in energy storage integration and are looking forward to what real-time feeder data will allow us to achieve in terms of performance optimization,” said Karen Hutt, president and CEO of NS Power.

Construction is scheduled for 2017 and the project—funded in part by Sustainable Development Technology Canada—will be active in 2018, according to NS Power.