Calling it an “important milestone” in the evolution of Ontario’s electricity system, Paul Murphy, the president and chief executive of Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator, announced Thursday that energy and process storage technologies would be added to the mix of options available to provide regulation services to the province’s grid — that is, keeping supply and demand on the grid in constant balance, second-by-second. To start, the IESO has contracted to add 10 megawatts of regulation services to the mix via a combination of flywheel energy storage, battery storage and “process storage” — the latter being the by-the-second control of many industrial loads as a way to rapidly reduce and ramp up grid demand. It’s sometimes called aggregated demand-response.

It’s a first for Ontario, which until now has relied largely on electricity generation assets, such as natural gas-fired power plants, to provide grid-balancing services. The gradual integration of fast-reacting storage technologies will help reduce our reliance on fossil fuel generation. According to the IESO, “This quick response is becoming increasingly important to facilitate more renewable resources like wind and solar, whose output is variable in nature.”

Through competitive tender, three firms have been contracted to supply this first round of alternative regulation services. Toronto-based Enbala Power Networks will provide 4 megawatts of process storage, which will come from water plants, cold storage facilities, universities, hospitals, and any other industrial, commercial or institutional facilities that have large power loads that can be flexibly used and easily controlled — such as pumps, fans and refrigeration units. For more than a year, Enbala has been supplying its service to PJM Interconnection, which is the regional system operator for 13 U.S. states and one district in the U.S. northeast.

Another 2 megawatts will come through NRStor, which through a partnership with flywheel developer Temporal Power and Ontario Power Generation will integrated flywheel technology into the Ontario grid for the first time. The balance will come from RES Canada, part of renewable energy developer RES Group, which will construct a battery-based storage system in southwestern Ontario (home to many wind farms).

While the numbers are small — 10 megawatts is just a pimple on a elephant’s butt — it finally puts non-hydro storage on the map in Ontario, opening the door for more technologies and approaches, and ultimately many more megawatts and fewer emissions.