The company predicts there will be 500,000 EVs on Ontario roads by 2029, up from about 300,000 today.YVES HERMAN/Reuters
Ottawa-based BluWave-ai has signed a deal with four Ontario utilities to deploy its technology that regulates electric vehicle charging as a way to reduce strains on the province’s grid when demand is high.
The project is aimed at smoothing out power demand peaks as loads grow in the coming years with the expansion of EV use and data centre construction, said Devashish Paul, BluWave-ai’s founder and chief executive.
The technology can benefit the provincewide grid by reducing loads during peak times, and ratepayers in local distribution areas by allowing utilities to defer capital spending on physical upgrades to power systems, Mr. Paul said. Such costs get passed on to consumers.
Oshawa Power, Oakville Hydro, Enova Power and Essex Powerlines have agreed to participate in the project, under which BluWave-ai will garner $6-million through various sources of funding, the company said in a release. The deal builds on a program it announced early this year to deploy the patented artificial intelligence technology across the country.
The nine-year-old company operates in Canada and internationally and has a staff of 45 who have developed a range of products aimed at making electricity systems more efficient. It is backed by a number of global investors, which have helped it raise more than $16-million. BluWave-ai is embarking on a new funding round, Mr. Paul said in an interview.
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The company describes the platform, called EV Everywhere, as a distributed energy storage network that leverages connected EVs to balance local grids.
When charging their vehicles, consumers can take advantage through a BluWave-ai app, which connects with the clouds of auto manufacturers, including Tesla, Kia, Hyundai, Ford, GM and others. The technology detects the amount of charge in a vehicle’s battery and takes into account the time when a driver plans to use the car again.
At the same time, the company’s system monitors the grid and determines the best time for charging the car based on expected demand and other factors, including when there will be increased renewable power feeding the grid or when prices are lower. This helps the Independent Electricity System Operator manage the network, the company said.
BluWave-ai’s system also predicts loads being handled by local distribution companies’ neighbourhood substations.
“We’ve built all those out. They’re underpinning what we do with the EVs, and now actively controlling the EVs is kind of the value,” Mr. Paul said. “Today, it’s not the biggest load on the grid, but it’s incrementally increasing over time.”
The company predicts there will be 500,000 EVs on Ontario roads by 2029, up from about 300,000 today. That growth is one factor in the need to deal with both electricity supply and demand in the province.
The Ontario Energy Board recently released final guidelines for its demand-side management strategy, known as non-wires solutions, that encourages regulated electricity distributors to turn to a range of conservation and demand management alternatives in place of expenditures on poles, wires and new substations.
BluWave-ai said it expects $66-million to $100-million in contracts will be issued in the province in the next three to five years as a result of the policy, and it hopes to capture the majority of those.
Enova Power serves about 165,000 customers in the Kitchener-Waterloo region. CEO Greig Cameron said in a statement that the utility’s service area and the number of EVs within it are expanding rapidly. The project will offer useful insights into how the vehicles interact with the grid, and how Enova can use them to manage power demand, he said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of BluWave-ai.