Glen and Tom want to soup up our grid

The Ontario Ministry of Energy announced today it will spend $265,250 on a locally-based project aimed at developing a better way to deliver electricity in the community and, ultimately, in communities around the world.

The project, in total, will cost $689,940 to develop, with the balance in funding coming from California-based Energizing Co.

The Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre (SSMIC), the Sault Ste. Marie PUC, Energizing Co. and Virginia-based engineering firm Leidos are the four partners in the project.

"The jobs will be created in Sault Ste. Marie to develop this new software tool that will allow utilities (such as the PUC) to analyze their grid to make choices about which new technologies to invest in," said Tom Vair, Innovation Centre executive director, after the funding announcement.

"We're going to develop a software tool that helps the PUC analyze their electricity grid and make investments in their electricity grid…ideally these technologies would help them be more efficient and improve reliability."

"The software will be developed here, we'll work with Energizing Co., and then it will be sold to other utilities around the world in the future, but piloted and developed here in Sault Ste. Marie," Vair said.

It is another step the PUC can take to develop it own smart grid, Vair said.

The announcement came as a highlight of the Energy Opportunities Conference, currently being held in Sault Ste. Marie. 

Five to 10 jobs will be created locally through development of the project, Vair told reporters.

"We're looking forward to supporting the development effort of this tool," said Energizing Co. founder and CEO Glen Martin, a Sault native. 

"It's going to be a critical path for us to begin our work in rolling out microgrid projects in other parts of North America, and indeed Asia and Europe, through this combination of analytical capabilities," Martin said.

"The community geomatics capability of this community is something the Innovation Centre has developed to an extremely high level…and we think we can create something that does not exist elsewhere."

The Energy Opportunities Conference is a gathering of professionals from North America and Europe, coordinated by the Innovation Centre, focussed on networking and developing new opportunities in smartgrid and alternative energy.

Approximately 150 delegates are in attendance at the conference, which began Tuesday and continues through to Thursday at Algoma's Water Tower Inn.

(PHOTO: Glen Martin, Energizing Co. founder and CEO, speaks to an audience gathered at the Energy Opportunities Conference at Algoma's Water Tower Inn Wednesday. Darren Taylor/SooToday)