Smart Grid Projects
Ministry of Energy
Ontario is building a smarter electricity grid which will give families and businesses more control over how and when they use electricity. It will allow consumers to control appliances and lights in their homes from anywhere at anytime.
Ontario's Smart Grid Fund is an important part of the province's Clean Energy Economic Development strategy. It supports private sector investment in smart grid projects that will test, develop and bring to market the next generation of smart grid solutions.
This program is part of the McGuinty Government's plan to invest in the renewal of the electricity system, create jobs and leverage Ontario's experience as a clean energy leader and help build the smart grid industry.
The recipients are divided by program category.
Behind the Meter
These projects feature technologies on the customer side of the meter that enable two-way information flow between the consumer and their local utility.
| Project | Project description | Jobs Created |
| Ecobee Commercial | Placing smart in-office displays in 300 small and medium sized commercial buildings to demonstrate energy and operational savings that can be achieved using a web based energy management system. | 7 |
| Energate Consumer Engagement | Placing hundreds of smart energy management in-home displays to demonstrate their integration with advanced metering infrastructure and to test their ability to help grid operators manage the system. | 40 |
Integrating Distributed Energy Resources
These projects enable the connection of distributed generation, load management and/or storage devices to the electricity grid. This will help enhance the flow of electricity and the whole system performance by making it more efficient.
| Project | Project description | Jobs Created |
| Enbala Capacity
| Connection of 90 different commercial and industrial loads to the Enbala Power Network to test the capacity of the network to serve as a grid management tool. | 22 |
Regional Integration
These projects feature multiple smart grid technologies working together to test a number of solutions.
| Project | Project description | Jobs Created |
| Siemens Region of Durham Smart Grid Demo
| Building a control centre for three utilities to enable interaction, control, dispatching, monitoring, asset condition assessment, and load modeling/control/balancing of their systems. | 29 |
| Burlington Electricity Services Community SG Project | Establishing a mixed residential-commercial community that integrates a variety of Smart Grid technologies, e.g. distribution automation, increased distributed generation capacity, and home energy management. | 53 |
Data Management
These projects are finding new ways to use data generated by smart meters and other electricity grid assets. This will help improve investment decisions and system performance, as well as protect the privacy and safety of consumers.
| Project | Project description | Jobs Created |
| IBM IBM Canada Research and Development Centre
| Creating a research collaboration centre that will use and analyze smart meter data. The project will leverage this data to identify ways to improve conservation and shift usage away from peak times. | 145 |
| Prolucid Prolucid Smart Grid Power Technologies
| Developing, testing and gathering data in real time to give local distribution companies more automated control over managing their systems by pinpointing outages and finding fault responses. | 11 |
| N-Dimensions Smart Meter Cyber Security | Demonstrating cyber security capabilities for smart meter collector systems. This will help ensure data is secure. | 14 |
| Essex Energy Corp. Distribution Monitoring and Control
| Construction of a software system that will integrate data sources from a variety of technologies (including existing smart meters) to monitor the state of the distribution system and alert operators to system problems. | 16 |
Grid Automation
These projects use innovative software and hardware technology that will help the system operator remotely control aspects of the electricity system, making it easier to pinpoint outages and manage the system.
| Recipient | Project description | Jobs Created |
| RuggedCom Advanced Distribution Energy Management | Developing new infrastructure that will support and encourage the wide scale adoption of smart grid, renewables energy and electric vehicle solutions. | 14 |
| RuggedCom WiMax for Smart Grid Communications | Creating a demo of open, standards-based, real-time, two-way, broadband, secure, and reliable communications for the smart grid. | 10 |
| dTechs dTechs at Oakville Hydro | Installing 225 high resolution wireless sensors on the medium voltage supply in Oakville to help the utility detect issues on their grid, making the system more efficient and reliable. | 8 |
| GE Grid IQ Centre | Building a facility for research and development in substation and distribution automation, transmission protection and control | 370 |