German clean power company sonnen Group is entering the Canadian market with a battery-based virtual power plant (VPP) pilot project at the Blatchford community in Edmonton, which it calls a first for the country.

Tapping into an approximately $5-million grant provided by the Alberta government, sonnen is joining four partners to install and operate its battery systems in 100 homes, forming almost two megawatt-hours (mW-h) of storage capacity. The homes will become operationally carbon neutral.

The batteries will be part of a VPP, a set of small, decentralized energy generation and storage assets that effectively unite into a power plant for the community. The rooftop solar panels on the homes will be the primary source of electricity for the VPP, with excess grid power flowing into the batteries.

Called the country’s first battery energy storage VPP by Geoff Ferrell, senior vice-president of the VPP project business of sonnen Inc. USA, the Blatchford project is “our major entry into the Canadian market,” he said in an interview with Sustainable Biz Canada.

sonnen has battery projects at other master-planned communities, such as Soleil Lofts in Utah and Hunters Point in Cortez, Fla.

“Our batteries are really sold with the promise of VPP, of grid interaction, of grid stability, of harnessing renewables in a better, smarter way, and future-proofing people’s investment.”

Pushing a utility 'to the next level'

Founded in 2010 and based in Bavaria, sonnen designs and sells energy storage systems. It has approximately 36 mW-h of energy storage capacity worldwide and operates in Europe, the Americas and Australia.

sonnen is involved in a partnership that involves local utility EPCOR, Edmonton-based homebuilder Landmark Homes, Calgary-based solar energy retailer Solartility Energy and the University of Alberta.

By installing its batteries at Landmark’s homes, sonnen is able to work with EPCOR and Solartility to “start to learn where a VPP can fit both of their needs,” Ferrell said.

For example, Landmark is building net-zero homes in Blatchford, a sustainability focused master-planned community that mandates better-than-code dwellings. EPCOR is exploring how a VPP can help stabilize the grid and add more solar energy without needing transformer upgrades.

The VPP will give insights into consumer behaviour so EPCOR can make informed decisions to solve grid problems, Ferrell said, such as when to store an overflow of cheap or zero-cost solar energy in the batteries and dispatch it back to the grid when requested.

In addition to using solar energy for most of its power, the VPP will promote low-carbon energy by offsetting the need for natural gas peaker plants to meet high demand, he added. If a utility is generating wind power at night and stowing it in the batteries, there will be less need to generate at-demand power.

“The ability to take that carbon neutrality, push that out to the grid to help the utility provider increase their carbon offsets to the energy they’re providing to the grid, that’s really where the battery and the VPP take it to the next level,” Ferrell added.

A bonus is that the VPP’s electricity can be sold to the grid, and the revenue goes to homeowner.

sonnen plans to expand in Canada

The VPP at Blatchford is already operating, with approximately 10 per cent of the batteries installed. sonnen expects to have the 100 batteries in Landmark’s homes by the end of 2027.

Though the batteries in the pilot “won’t have a net effect of lowering people’s electricity costs”, it will give EPCOR and Solartility the ability to demonstrate what 1,000 or 10,000 could do, Ferrell explained. At that larger scale, it could stabilize or decrease electricity prices, he added.

The University of Alberta will calculate the difference in energy use from a baseline home and one linked to the VPP to show the impact it could have.

Landmark is signalling to sonnen it wants to go beyond the 100 battery systems due to positive feedback, Ferrell said.

Alongside the pilot, sonnen is launching a broader commercial initiative to partner with solar contractors in creating more VPPs. In Canada, the company sees opportunities to expand further in Alberta, as well as British Columbia and Quebec.

The aspiration is for sonnen to reach over 3,000 sites in Edmonton area, totalling 60 megawatt-hours of capacity.