A University of Windsor professor has been invited to join electric power industry leaders from across North America to address Ontario’s shifting energy landscape.

Rupp Carriveau, a civil engineering professor and director of the university’s Environmental Energy Institute, is the sole academic speaker invited to present at the 2017 Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) Stakeholder Summit for industry on June 12 in Toronto.

Dr. Carriveau will join a panel discussion on the integration and management of emissions-free generation.

“We’re trying to help energy storage operators better understand how their assets behave under dynamic demands,” he said. “Once they understand that, they will be able to make better business decisions on how to take advantage of dynamic market opportunities.”

Carriveau works with industry partners Hydrostor and Toronto Hydro, which currently operate the only grid connected underwater energy storage facility in the world. The Hydrostor system, located 2.5 km offshore in Lake Ontario, uses compressed air and the weight of water to run its system with minimal emissions. Carriveau said his team is running the facility through all of the potential energy demand scenarios to learn more about the process.

“How quickly can we ramp up to full power? Can we provide fast ramping support to the grid? We are collecting performance data from the plant to measure how efficiently it executes each mode,” he said about the team’s research project supported by the Ontario Centres of Excellence and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

“Once we have an operational map, we will look at market opportunities and find out what makes the most economic sense.”

Other speakers include representatives from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the Brattle Group, Brookfield Energy Marketing Inc., EnerNOC Inc., Good Company Associates, Goreway Station Partnership, ISO/RTO Emerging Technologies Task Force, London Hydro, New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), OhmConnect, Powerconsumer, North Bay Hydro and the Regional Municipality of York. For more information, please visit www.ieso.ca/summit.