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Successful participants in IESO’s first-ever energy efficiency auction

April 14, 2021 – Municipalities, hospitals, warehouses, industrial facilities and others are participating in a unique pilot that, according to Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator, “will secure energy efficiency projects to reduce peak electricity demand”.

IESO recently announced the successful participants in its first-ever energy efficiency auction, testing ways to increase energy efficiency’s contribution to grid reliability and support consumers in designing solutions that best fit their needs.

“Organizations are getting increasingly sophisticated in how they manage their energy use… something Ontario’s power grid can leverage,” said Nik Schruder, director of Energy Efficiency, IESO. “This pilot takes energy efficiency another step further, with participating organizations reducing their impact on the grid in a way that we—as the system operator—can count on as we forecast peak demand.”

By adopting efficient equipment or shifting existing processes to address seasonal peak hours, this pilot will enable more organizations to make a quantifiable contribution to reducing peak demands on the electricity system, says IESO.

The auction attracted interest from a range of organizations, proposing technologies that ranged from thermal storage and lighting retrofits to machinery upgrades.

“Participants are able to develop their own energy efficiency projects that are best suited to meet their needs,” continued Schruder. “Our aim is for this pilot to promote greater innovation in the energy efficiency sector and offer customers more control in how they use energy efficiency to improve their businesses and reduce costs, while supporting the reliability of the electricity grid.”

IESO used a competitive approach for the pilot, holding an auction for proponents to submit proposals. Successful participants include Mohawk College, Unity Health Toronto, and the City of London, as well as a variety of aggregators (organizations that participate on behalf of multiple smaller consumers).

Funded through the IESO’s Grid Innovation Fund, the auction secured 7.4 MW of energy reductions for the daily peak hours of Winter 2022/2023 and 6.6 MW for Summer 2023.

This enabled competition between customer-driven solutions, resulting in offer prices for the successful projects that are lower than typical energy efficiency business programs, explained IESO.

The full list of successful participants:

• Aenon Technologies Inc.
• Efficiency Capital Inc.
• Gerdau Ameristeel Corp.
• Mohawk College
• Ontario Clean Water Agency
• Rodan Energy Solutions Inc.
• City of London
• Unity Health Toronto
• Voltus Energy Canada Ltd.