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    BluWave-ai to Deploy AI-Driven Smart Grid Optimizer for Sunbank Solar Farm in Summerside, Canada

    Feb. 13, 2024
    The cloud-based software solution from BluWave-ai installed with Microsoft Azure optimizes the operation of Sunbank to utilize available renewables
    Department of Energy
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    BluWave-ai signed a contract with the City of Summerside, Canada, to deploy and activate its AI-driven Smart Grid Optimizer for the city's solar farm - Sunbank. 

    Sunbank, a joint venture with Samsung Renewables and the City of Summerside, enhances the city’s renewable generation with 21.6 MW of solar and a 10 MW/ 20 MWh hour battery, augmenting a 12 MW wind farm supplying the city. 

    The cloud-based software solution from BluWave-ai installed with Microsoft Azure optimizes the operation of Sunbank to utilize available renewables, reducing net energy costs and the city's carbon footprint.

    The Sunbank solar and energy storage facility captures energy during surplus periods and releases it when required to meet system demand. BluWave-ai’s solution can help discharge stored energy on short notice to handle peak demand or shortfalls in other energy supplies while helping avoid wasting renewable energy. 

    The Smart Grid Optimizer can be augmented with BluWave-ai EV Everywhere to hold the rapidly growing, large energy storage capacity from EVs and behind-the-meter EV chargers connected within electricity distribution grids to further uptake renewables with AI-managed active charging.

    Summerside can manage most of the peak demand with clean energy in case of dispatchable generation with a maximum peak load of about 35 MW. Summerside imports energy from the mainland through a subsea cable, which is generated using a combination of non-renewable and renewable sources. 

    “With the Canadian Federal Government’s target for net zero electricity grids by 2035, a key to retiring natural gas peaking plants and coal-fired thermal plants will be to manage fluctuating renewables in the context of the needs of the grid,” said Devashish Paul, CEO BluWave-ai. “Leveraging 26 USPTO patents filed in the area of grids and optimization embedded in our AI products, this project at Sunbank will be a key AI-enabled battery dispatch project applicable to smart grids across Canada by 2035.” 

    As system operators and power utilities struggle to build in more renewables to reduce fossil-fuel generation and corresponding emissions, Summerside’s state-of-the-art smart grid with BluWave-ai’s Smart Grid Optimizer unveils a solution applicable worldwide. 

    About the Author

    EnergyTech Staff

    Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

    Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    He can be reached at [email protected]. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.