Hydro One, the electricity utility that serves Ontario, Canada, recently launched a pilot project that uses Tesla Powerwalls to provide battery backup to the local grid.
Powerwall is Tesla’s residential energy storage solution. Hydro One has deployed a battery energy storage system comprising several Powerwalls that will supplement power supply to residential customers during times of degraded reliability.
“We’ve launched a pilot project to provide backup battery-powered energy to households experiencing reliability issues,” Hydro One said in a Facebook post earlier this week.
Image: Hydro One
“While we’re still testing things out, we’re excited to work on finding innovative solutions that keep our customers connected and reduce outage durations.”
Late last year, Hydro One launched another innovative pilot project that used electric vehicles (EVs) as backup batteries to provide residential power during outages. The project used Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology to connect EVs to the local electricity supply.
Tesla is currently also running a Virtual Power Plant project in California that pays Powerwall owners for contributing some of the energy they generate to the grid. Under the program, more than 3,600 Powerwall-equipped homes delivered over 24MW of power during a recent grid event.
