The provincial government of Ontario, Canada, has begun pre-development work on a 1GW/11GWh pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) project.
Ontario will invest up to CA$285 million (US$198 million) to advance the Ontario Pumped Storage Project, proposed for construction in Meaford, a coastal municipality about 180km from Toronto.
The PHES is being co-developed by Canadian pipeline and energy infrastructure company TC Energy and the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, a collective of First Nation communities that would be able to enter an equity partnership with TC Energy if the project goes ahead.
Water from the surrounding Georgian Bay would be pumped into an elevated reservoir during periods of low electricity demand and then released at higher or peak demand periods through turbines, generating low-carbon power at low cost.
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TC Energy first proposed the PHES project in 2019, citing an estimated cost of CA$4.5 billion total investment. The company said in 2023 that it hoped to begin construction the following year, but was awaiting a final determination of approval from the provincial government.
The company created a potential long-term revenue framework report after then-Ontario energy minister Todd Smith said pumped hydro projects could be in the province’s best interests but that the government required better evaluation of “broader societal and economic benefits.”
Ontarion government final decision rests on pre-development work
The Ontario government’s final decision on the project remains pending. The pre-development now being undertaken with government funding includes the completion of a detailed cost estimate and environmental assessments.
Ontario’s current minister of energy and electrification Stephen Lecce said this week the project could help the advance the government’s “all-of-the-above approach to energy affordability and energy security,” with electricity demand in the province projected to grow 75% by 2050.
“The Ontario Pumped Storage Project has the potential to store and deliver clean, affordable energy for decades, representing Canada’s largest clean energy storage project,” added minister Lecce.
Lecce said the project’s final approval will also be contingent on the expansion of the nearby Bruce Power nuclear power station’s expansion going ahead.
A government announcement also quoted research from the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis, which found that a pumped storage project in Meaford could contribute CA$6.2 billion to the GDP of Ontario over an estimated 50-year project lifetime.
In mid-2023, the provincial government published Power Ontario’s Growth, a plan that laid out a low-carbon energy strategy to meet rising electricity demand. This ran alongside Ontario’s ongoing procurements of battery energy storage system (BESS) resources and natural gas through its Expedited LT-1, LT-1 and LT-2 long-term capacity solicitations.
Expedited LT-1, held in 2023, saw contracts awarded to 881MW of energy storage projects in two tranches, one awarding 142MW and the second 739MW. In LT-1 a total of 1,748.22MW of energy storage bids were successful. LT-2 is expected to be held later this year.
In early 2024, trade association Energy Storage Canada commissioned advisory Dunsky Energy + Climate to write a report, which found that Ontario should put about 6GW of long-duration energy storage (LDES) resources, such as pumped hydro, onto the grid by 2032 to cost-effectively meet electricity demand growth and stay on track to hit net zero targets.
Read more Energy-Storage.news coverage of Ontario’s energy storage sector, including recent progress on some of the hundreds of megawatts of BESS awarded E-LT1 and LT-1 capacity contracts.
