Ontario Energy Association Recognizes Alectra for Innovation

October 1, 2021

At its annual Energy Awards ceremony, the Ontario Energy Association (OEA) honoured Alectra with the prestigious ‘2021 OEA Innovation Award’.

The annual Energy Awards recognize OEA members for their achievements in the Ontario energy sector. This year, Alectra received the Innovation Award, and was recognized for its breakthrough ideas, new technology, and creative adaptation of existing technology.

In 2019, Alectra established the Green Energy and Technology Centre (GRE&T Centre) as a dedicated innovation facility to identify, evaluate, develop, and accelerate new clean and customer-friendly energy solutions for its customers and for its communities.

Alectra’s GRE&T Centre is actively engaged in working with industry partners and the government to create solutions that support its employees, customers, and communities. The GRE&T Centre works on active pilot projects that demonstrate Alectra’s leadership in innovation and evaluate the challenges, benefits, and long-term implications of integrating Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) on a broad scale. Alectra has been recognized by the OEA for the following innovative projects:

• POWER.HOUSE™ – offering residential customers integrated solar-plus-storage units and an energy management system (EMS) that protects their homes against power outages, reduces electricity bills and lowers their carbon footprint. POWER.HOUSE operates as a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) for optimal operation of the local electricity grid.
• Power.House Hybrid – enables the move towards Net-Zero Energy Emission homes by integrating a hybrid set of electrical and thermal equipment into a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) platform. This novel solution adjusts heat and electricity consumption within a home to minimize its carbon footprint.
• GridExchange – a transactive, blockchain-backed energy platform that offers customers the ability to participate in an energy marketplace.
• IESO Non-Wires Alternatives Demonstration Project – delivered in partnership with the IESO, this project (Canada’s first-of-its-kind) aims to design and demonstrate a distribution-level DER market that is interoperable with the IESO wholesale market to help defer and address system need for traditional wires infrastructure investments.

“It’s an honour to receive the Innovation Award from the OEA and to be recognized for our breakthrough projects,” said Brian Bentz, President and CEO, Alectra Inc. “The GRE&T Centre continues to work towards enabling clean technologies to make the lives of our customers healthier, easier, and more affordable. We’re excited to help build a clean energy future and embrace these new technologies to help our customers.”

To learn more about how the Alectra GRE&T Centre is leading the industry in clean energy innovation, visit alectra.com/innovation-alectra.