An American clean energy company has been awarded the tender to develop P.E.I.’s first micro energy grid.

Massachusetts-based Ameresco Canada Inc. will collaborate with the P.E.I. Energy Corporation on the $24.6 million project at Slemon Park, north of Summerside.

The microgrid was announced nearly a year and a half ago, in August 2020, and has rarely been mentioned in public since.

SaltWire Network has been unsuccessful in its attempts to speak with anyone at the P.E.I. Energy Corporation about the microgrid. Though, some general information was provided via emails.

Typically, utility-scale power is generated by various types of generators (burning carbon, nuclear, hydro, wind, etc.) and that power is sent to homes and businesses through vast power grids.

Microgrids condense that process into a much smaller scale. Power generation is often local and green, with excess power shunted into batteries for use in reducing costs during peak use times. A microgrids’ ability to operate independently from the larger grid should it lose power also builds resiliency into the wider system.

The Slemon Park microgrid will consist of a 10-megawatt solar power plant and associated large-scale battery storage capacity. The solar panels will be ground-mounted in an area east of Hanger 8, off Aerospace Boulevard.  

It will also include some small-scale battery storage designed for individual homes. The microgrid will initially include the use of six Tesla Powerwalls, though no further details of this aspect of the project have been announced yet.  

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