Case Studies
Putting innovative ideas into action.
Monday, June 1st, 2009
Hartley Bay and Pulse™ Micro Smart Grid
The Village of Hartley Bay and Pulse Energy have installed one of the first complete Micro Smart Grids in North America. This intelligent Micro Smart Grid will enable a real-time demand response system to shed non-essential loads at peak times and avoid bringing multiple diesel generators online unnecessarily. In the future, this demand management system will work in concert with a planned 1MW hydro-electric facility, allowing fuel switching between renewable source electricity and heating oil, depending on whether a surplus of electricity is being produced by the hydro facility.
Hartley Bay, an isolated off-grid community of 160 people, is located on the north coast of British Columbia, Canada. Pulse Energy has been working on energy management programs with the community since 2007, and helping the community to make valuable reductions to its annual energy bills, which can exceed $1 million (or over $10,000 per household per year). This Micro Smart Grid project will bring some of the most advanced energy management technology available to rural and remote communities. Providing energy to rural communities is generally more expensive than urban areas, making it even more critical that they manage their energy as efficiently as possible.
Hartley Bay is the first Micro Smart Grid application of its kind in North America for an entire off-grid community. Pulse™ software makes the Micro Smart Grid more effective, by both enabling demand response and by bringing relevant energy information and analysis to building managers and occupants in a real-time, web-enabled format.
- Community leaders, managers and residents will all have access to Pulse™ software. Leaders can, for the first time, accurately measure the ROI on new energy efficiency equipment, track GHG emissions and measure savings.
- Managers can use the data to monitor community energy performance, fix anomalies, shed loads when necessary and optimize energy consumption and demand.
- Occupants can use the data to engage in and measure the effectiveness of community energy management programs and view their homes energy consumption and demand.
By tracking performance in real time, energy performance can be improved in days rather than years, and results can be communicated to the public via an automated dashboard.
The introduction of a Micro Smart Grid in Hartley Bay will work in concert with the community’s goal of becoming the ‘Greenest First Nation Community in Canada’. Around the world, combining Pulse™ software and automated demand response with diesel electric generation and intermittent renewable energy supplies will enable thousands of rural communities to efficiently use renewable energy, improve the reliability of their power supplies, and reduce their dependence on diesel.