Ontario making strong progress on smart grid development
The Ontario Smart Grid Forum, a group led by the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator, released today its latest report on smart grid development. The report, titled “Modernizing Ontario’s Electricity System: Next Steps,” documents progress that has been made since the Forum’s first report two years ago and the many smart grid-related activities currently underway. It also makes several recommendations that will help build on the current momentum of development.
The report touches on electric vehicles and related infrastructure, emergence of the smart home, importance of privacy protection, integration of energy storage, challenges of managing an expected deluge of what I like to call “gridformation”, and the overall importance of industry standards. It also attempts to quantify the expected annual investment in smart grid technologies, systems and training over the next five years.
Disclosure: I was contracted by the IESO to prepare this report so am reserving comment. That said, for anyone interested in Ontario’s smart grid activities this report offers a great sense of where the province is coming from, where it’s at, and where it is going on all things related to the smart grid.
Tags: IESO, Ontario Smart Grid Forum, smart grid
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
May 4th, 2011 at 12:58 am
[...] Clean Break » Blog Archive » Ontario creation clever progress on … [...]
May 4th, 2011 at 3:30 pm
[...] Ontario making strong progress on smart grid development – Clean Break [...]