Making yogurt with batteries: part of Ontario’s net zero future

Towering above the Lactalis dairy in Etobicoke are two giant metal silos filled with cream, ready to be grown into yogurt.

Hidden in the shadows below is a white shipping container filled with batteries, ready to step in at a moment’s notice and power the entire factory.

The industrial-scale batteries are an innovative way one of Canada’s oldest companies is using technology to save money, reduce its carbon footprint and relieve strain on the power grid. Widely deployed, these types of batteries could play an important role in reducing Canada’s carbon emissions and building a net-zero economy.

The Lactalis batteries are activated when there is a micro-failure – a small fluctuation in the plant’s nutrition – that can lower the temperature of the pasteurization process and destroy an entire batch of yogurt.

They also activate when the power grid is stressed by peak demand, and the province activates its fleet of emissions-intensive natural gas generators, powering the plant autonomously and freeing up power for others.

The combined savings from not paying for power at peak rates — a premium that accrues up to 70 percent of the electricity bill for large, industrial users — and not having to throw away up to 10 spoiled batches of yogurt a year add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual savings. .

“We have the advantage of running the plant when the power goes out — that’s very, very important — and reducing carbon and energy to help the planet,” said Maurizio Bizzarri, director of corporate engineering at Lactalis Canada.

The battery system was installed at no cost to Lactalis through a partnership with Peak Power, a Toronto-based company that operates the batteries, and Switch Power, an Alberta-based power producer who financed the cost of capital.

All three companies share in the energy bill savings of the dairy.

“It all comes down to something for free. You get significant savings for free,” said Derek Lim Soo, CEO of Peak Power, which has signed a deal to install batteries at five Lactalis dairies in Ontario. “It is meant to be risk-free. No upfront capital. Impactful impact on your business results; impactful impact on your ecological footprint.”

Those punitive peak power rates call for action. Another large user, McMaster University, pays so much for its electricity that it has built its own gas-powered generators to pull itself off the grid at peak times. friendly solution.

Meanwhile, a pilot project in Harbord Village placed batteries in 10 homes and coordinated them remotely so they could activate simultaneously and reduce demand during peak hours.

For companies using a diesel generator as backup power, battery replacement unlocks other applications that provide their own revenue streams, said Justin Rangooni, executive director of Energy Storage Canada. A company can charge the battery at night with cheap power and use it during the day to avoid paying for expensive power from the grid.

“Once you have energy storage, the benefit is that it does these other things as well,” he said. “It is a Swiss army knife for companies.”

“It’s not just a cleaner option for emergency power. It’s better for the company and better for the grid.”

According to the Independent Electricity System Operator, Ontario 89 percent carbon-free electricity. But that annual average for 2022 obscures the fact that the grid is often 100 percent carbon-free, as long as the gas plants are not running.

According to IESO statistics, gas-fired power plants were on average just under six hours a day last year. But if demand can be reduced at peak times, those plants won’t need to be started up as often, reducing carbon emissions from power generation.

The federal government has set regulations to establish a net-zero grid by 2035. To achieve this goal, a lot of renewable energy needs to be built, such as wind and solar energy. But batteries will play a key role in helping us use existing generation more strategically, according to a report from Clean Energy Canada.

“We’re in a situation where I don’t know what we’ll do if batteries don’t come, because I think the reality is that relying on gas turbines just doesn’t make sense,” said Lim Soo.

Because these types of batteries are placed ‘behind the meter’, the province does not know exactly how many there are left. A report last year commissioned by the IESO estimated that there were 250 megawatts of behind-the-meter batteries across the province.

That’s more energy storage than currently installed on the grid, where a major investment in grid-scale batteries was recently announced, designed to capture excess renewable energy and store it until demand picks up again.

At the Etobicoke dairy, the battery can power the plant for two hours — more than enough to get through these critical peak periods, Rangooni said.

“Spikes in the system are short-lived, so having short-term resources to alleviate them is crucial and efficient.”

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