Saint John Energy’s Smart Grid Wins Global Award for Innovation

June 3, 2021

Saint John Energy’s vision for an intelligent electricity grid – a cornerstone of its work building the Utility of the Future – has captured a global award saluting innovation in advancing a smarter and cleaner world.

The International Smart Grid Action Network (ISGAN) declared Saint John Energy’s smart grid its top project, selecting the locally owned energy company as the winner of its 2021 Award of Excellence.

The prestigious award was presented to Saint John Energy today in a virtual ceremony from the Twelfth Clean Energy Ministerial Meeting, hosted by Chile. The global forum shares best practices and promotes policies and programs supporting the transition to a global clean energy economy.

“The selection of the ISGAN Award of Excellence winner was made by a highly distinguished international jury, composed in collaboration with the Global Smart Energy Federation,” says Luciano Martini, chair of the executive committee of ISGAN. He went on to praise all entrants for their “commitment and passion…to the acceleration towards a smarter and cleaner world.”

Ray Robinson, President and CEO of Saint John Energy, thanked the network for the honour while praising the employees of the Utility and its partners in innovation.

“When we started work on our smart grid project a few years ago, our vision was to ensure that our city had a modern and sustainable electrical grid – we certainly didn’t expect to be recognized internationally,” Robinson said. “The fact that we have is a testament to the strong culture of innovation we’ve built at Saint John Energy and to the remarkable talent of our people and our many partners. I’m so very proud of them all.”

“Saint John Energy’s smart grid brings significant advances in artificial intelligence to the city’s distribution system. When fully developed, it will analyze data ranging from historical energy demand to weather forecasts as it predicts and manages energy load across the city,” said Carl Ozkaynak, Director of Smart Grid at Saint John Energy. “It brings the future of energy management to Saint John today.”

The smart grid will also allow customers to be a part of the future. Intelligent devices such as smart water heaters, smart thermostats and smart heat pumps in their homes will become part of the interconnected grid, giving them opportunities to save energy and contribute to a greener environment.

The smart grid will allow Saint John Energy to curb peak demand for energy. Peak demand for energy can double carbon emissions in New Brunswick as generation plants powered by fossil fuels are brought online. And it drives up costs for the utility – it pays nearly $30 million every year in peak demand charges.

The smart grid is also important as Saint John Energy works to bring renewable energy onto the grid, such as the Burchill Wind Project that is set to power about 15 per cent of the city with affordable, clean energy once online by the end of next year. The smart grid will help orchestrate the flow of renewable energy in the years to come.

The global recognition comes just weeks after Ryan Mitchell, Saint John Energy’s vice president and chief development officer, was named one of Canada’s Clean50 leaders for championing the Utility of the Future vision for Saint John.

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