North Bay, Ont., plans to harness power with its new Community Energy Park.

North Bay Hydro Services broke ground on Friday on its microgrid project, which will see solar panels, a battery and a co-generator unit built on top of the YMCA.

The energy generated will provide heat and electricity for the YMCA, the Aquatic Centre and the nearby Memorial Gardens arena says Todd Wilcox president and chief operating officer for the utility company.

“The location was chosen because first of all these are very important community assets and a lot of people use them on a daily basis.”

The facilities also serve as emergency shelters in the North Bay community. With the new energy additions during a power outage or state of emergency the grid will provide self-sustained power and heat, Wilcox says.

“We have an automated ‘island’-ing capability, so if the grid goes down then we can automatically switch this over to being self-sufficient, off the microgrid.”

Wilcox calls this a key step in the evolution of Smart Grids technology and microgrids.

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