Toronto, Ontario-headquartered Hydrostor is proposing to deploy one of its advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) facilities in Greater Napanee, Ontario.
At a regular Greater Napanee council meeting held 25 June 2024, Hydrostor’s business development director Shaheer Aziz provided an update on the Quinte ESC project after first introducing town officials to the facility in July last year.
As well as a general update, Azis informed town officials of Hydrostor’s intentions to submit the project to the Ontario Independent Electricity System Operator’s (IESO’s) Long-Term 2 (LT2) RFP which is expected to launch later this year.
Hydrostor A-CAES patented technology
Hydrostor’s patented A-CAES technology, which Energy-Storage.News recently discussed with company president Jon Norman, uses excess grid electricity to produce heated compressed air. The heat produced during the process is stored above ground and the cool compressed air is forced underground pushing water stored in a cavern into an above-ground reservoir, storing potential energy in the form of compressed air and heat.
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When required, the process can be reversed, discharging electricity back onto the grid.
Ontario 500MW/8,000MWh long-duration storage facility
The Quinte ESC long-duration storage facility is a proposed 500MW/8,000MWh project utilising Hydrostor’s A-CAES technology located in Galts Corner, Greater Napanee adjacent to Ontario Power Generation’s Lennox Generating Station.
Hydrostor is partnering with the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte on the development of the project and has executed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the First Nations community.
The long-duration storage specialist has also secured the project site, completed an interconnection feasibility analysis study and carried out an environmental critical issue analysis study.
Interconnection to the IESO grid will be via the nearby Lennox transformer station or adjacent 230kV circuits.
Inaccurate communication
At the 25 June meeting, Azis explained that during recent initial surface-level geology studies, on-site technicians had incorrectly told neighbours of potential water scarcity linked to the project’s development. Azis stated that Hydrostor had since been in contact with these neighbours and that it isn’t possible to comment on the impact on local water supply before a hydrology study has been carried out.
Azis stressed to Greater Nappanee officials that Hydrostor is not only testing the area to ensure suitability for its technology, but to also find a site with minimal impact on the surrounding area.
If initial testing looks favourable for the project location, Azis said that Hydrostor would return to the council requesting its support for the project in the form of a Municipal Support Resolution (MSR), as mandated by the Government of Ontario for new build energy projects.
2GW Ontario storage procurement
Following the province’s largest ever energy storage procurement, the IESO is launching a second procurement (LT2 RFP) which the system operator will split into three different streams to secure capacity and energy into the 2030s and beyond.
After receiving feedback on its previous LT1 procurement, the IESO decided to create two separate streams for capacity resources: one targeting regular battery storage facilities and a second aimed at longer duration resources.
Hydrostor plans to submit its Quinte facility into the long lead time resource procurement stream where the IESO is seeking 500MW-1,00MW of capacity from new non-emitting resources expected to be in-service by 2034/35 for a period of 40 years.
Under a second capacity stream, the IESO is seeking another 500MW-1,000MW of capacity from non-emitting resources expected to be in-service by 2031 for a shorter 20 years.
The IESO is also seeking 2GW from non-emitting energy producing resources (such as solar and wind) expected to be online before 2030 under a third and final stream.
The final RFPs for each stream are expected to be released in the fourth quarter of 2024 with developers needing to submit their proposals by the third quarter of next year. The IESO expects to issue contracts for the LT2 RFP during the first quarter of 2026.
Further information on the procurement can be found on the IESO website.
5GW pipeline
Hydrostor claims to have a 5GW development portfolio which includes its 500MW/4,000MWh Willow Rock A-CAES facility in Kern County, California which secured its first offtake agreement last year, as reported in Energy-Storage.News.
After completing more favourable geological investigations outside of Hydrostor’s application with the California Energy Commission (CEC) for the Willow Rock project site, the developer submitted a supplemental application with the California regulator in March of this year.
Hydrostor has also secured an interconnection agreement for the project with Southern California Edison (SCE) and CAISO (queue no. 1782).
The company’s 200MW, 8-hour (1,600MWh) Silver City project in Broken Hill, New South Wales (NSW), Australia, appears to be moving towards construction after a binding agreement was signed with mining firm Perilya in Q3 last year to leverage the latter’s existing mining assets to support the project.
This followed the Silver City project being chosen in 2022 by transmission operator Transgrid to provide backup to the local grid. A 250MWh portion of the facility’s stored energy would be played into the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM), helping the otherwise capacity-constrained local network integrate a higher share of renewable energy.
Trisha Doyle, local MP for the Blue Mountains constituency of NSW talked up the project and its potential to firm up renewable energy capacity in the region, in a speech at Solar Media’s Energy Storage Summit Australia in May.
In a January 2022 interview with Energy-Storage.news, Hydrostor CEO Curtis VanWalleghem explained that after the company’s first megawatt-scale demonstration project went online in 2019, it was decided that in addition to providing the technology to third parties, Hydrostor would be best placed to kick off development of its own projects.
Additional reporting by Andy Colthorpe.
