Latest news with #microgrid
CTV News
27-05-2025
- Science
- CTV News
University of Regina unveils renewable energy microgrid
WATCH: A new microgrid that relies on renewable energy is up and running at the University of Regina. Damian Smith reports. Green is the colour, not just for the Saskatchewan Roughriders, but also for the University of Regina – as the organization has unveiled a new microgrid system which relies on renewable energy. The U of R's greenhouse gas technology centre is host to a power generator capable of producing several hundred megawatts. It's part of the university's research efforts on microgrids – a small-scale power grid that can produce electricity for a localized area. 'Microgrids provide a lot of benefits, including advanced stability, lower costs, and new usability of, of generation,' explained Irfan Al Anbagi, an associate professor in the faculty of engineering and applied science. 'The control system is the brain of the micro. So everything is located in one area.' The researchers say it's the first of its kind in Saskatchewan – and the university has partnered with small to medium sized businesses to put the grid to use. Those with electric vehicles can also make use of the microgrid through free chargers just outside the facility. Off campus, microgrids can help make renewable energy easier to access – especially in areas where connecting to a regular power grid is much more difficult. 'This can be beneficial to locations where you have difficulty supplying over. and you can utilize renewable generation as well,' Al-Anbagi added. For now, the microgrid is powered by solar. However, in the longer term, the team hopes their efforts can help renewable energy power the entire U of R campus. '[This] allows, like a sandbox environment for small and medium sized enterprises to use, as well as larger utilities like SaskPower, to test out or model,' Gregory Mack, the director of research partnerships and innovation explained. 'It's very useful and they can work with professors and students on campus.' Based on the lifespan of the solar cells and the lithium-ion batteries – the microgrid is expected to keep on producing energy with its current set-up for approximately 20 years.
CBC
27-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
University of Regina unveils province's 1st microgrid lab for clean energy research
The University of Regina has opened the doors to a new lab that aims to help reshape how energy is produced and used across Saskatchewan. The Microgrid Living Lab, a first-of-its-kind facility in the province, was launched as a hub for clean energy research, development and education in Saskatchewan. "About six per cent of generated power is lost in transmission. So in microgrids, we don't have that," said Irfan Al-Anbagi, an associate professor in electronic systems engineering and the lab's director. The lab functions off the main power grid. It's capable of generating, storing and distributing its own electricity, according to the university. "Everything is located in one area: generation, storage and control, and loads," Al-Anbagi said. "So less power dissipation, less power burned out in transmission. And this can be beneficial to locations where you have difficulty supplying power and you can utilize renewable generation as well in these locations." The lab draws power from renewable sources including solar panels, wind and hydro power. It emulates how microgrids could perform in real-world conditions, with the hope of identify more sustainable and flexible models for powering homes, businesses and remote communities in the province, the university says. Al-Anbagi said. "Supplying electricity to these locations can be expensive and hard and sometimes impossible." Multiple functions Al-Anbagi expects the microgrid to play a major role in teaching, experimental setups and research. "Currently I have two students, my colleague has two students. So in the future, we want to increase that number," Al-Anbagi said. He hopes students will use the micogrid as a hands-on tool. "The students appreciate the concept when they come and see it, compared to when they look at it in pictures, and they can also do some lab experiments." Al-Anbagi has also reached out to small- and medium-sized enterprises in the city that may be interested in using the lab for their own development and testing. "If an organization or company develops solar panels and they want to integrate the power into the control system, do real-time monitoring, real-time connectivity, they're welcome to use this system," Al-Anbagi said. The lab currently generates 10 kilowatts of solar power, enough to power a residential building or multiple homes. When the energy isn't being used for teaching or research, it's stored in "islanded mode," meaning it's kept separate from the university's main power grid. "We don't want to disrupt the main power supply of the university," Al-Anbagi said. "I think it's safer to disconnect the microgrid from the main university supply to do our own experiments." That energy is sometimes then sent into the university system to help power lights, air conditioning and other infrastructure. Powering Saskatchewan The biggest potential for the lab lies not in its present use, but in how it could shape the future of energy in Saskatchewan, according to Al-Anbagi. The province's unique energy challenges, from isolated northern communities to growing urban centers, make it a prime testing ground for microgrid solutions, he said. "It's not a lot of power, but I think it adds up," Al-Anbagi said. While microgrids aren't entirely new to Western Canada, this marks the first fully functional one of its kind in Saskatchewan.
Fast Company
22-05-2025
- Automotive
- Fast Company
Why this EV charging company just helped electrify an entire village in Senegal
In a small village in Senegal, almost no one has electricity, but that's about to change. Last year, a 40-foot-shipping container rolled into town, unfolded an array of solar panels on its roof, and crews began running wires to connect the whole village to clean power. After final approvals from the local government, the new microgrid will soon switch on. The project had an unusual funding source: ChargePoint, the EV charging company known for its network of a million chargers in the U.S. and Europe, spent six figures helping get it built, working with a technology partner called Africa GreenTec. The EV charging company used money that it earned selling carbon credits from 10,000 EV chargers in Germany. Under the EU's emissions trading program, it gets certificates for replacing gas or diesel fuel in cars with electricity. But since the electricity used to charge cars isn't yet 100% clean, the company wanted to use the carbon credit funds to go a step farther. (Germany's grid reached a record of 62.7% renewable energy in 2024, but still uses some coal and natural gas.) 'From the very beginning, we said we are going to set aside a certain amount of money for each kilowatt hour,' says Andreas Blin, director of segments and partnerships at ChargePoint. 'And this is going to be invested into a renewable energy product or project, just to make sure that everybody's clear that we are not about greenwashing—we're about burning less fossil fuels.' As the team considered where to spend the funds, it decided to partner with Africa GreenTec, a company that makes a mobile system called the Solartainer Amali, designed to quickly deploy solar power and electrify entire communities. The first project was built in Keur Ndiangane, a village with around 1,200 residents on the southern border of Senegal. Most people living there are subsistence farmers, dealing with a harsh climate that swings between floods and droughts. 'Before our project, Keur Ndiangane had no access to centralized electricity or public lighting,' says Wolfgang Rams, CEO of Africa GreenTec. 'Daily life effectively ended at sunset—shops closed, schools emptied, and the streets were plunged into darkness. Most households relied on candles or kerosene lamps.' Some small businesses, such as mills that process grains, ran on expensive diesel generators. To install the new microgrid, a crew spent a few weeks getting the 'Solartainer'— which has 144 solar panels and battery storage—ready to run. (The process is normally even faster, but installation was slower because of extreme heat). At the same time, they spent two months putting up more than 100 poles and nearly 16,000 feet of wiring for the new grid. They also added 55 street lights that each run independently off their own solar panels, helping improve safety for people walking at night. Families can sign up for different plans depending on what time of day they want to use electricity and how much they need. More than 140 people are pre-subscribed so far. (ChargePoint doesn't own any part of the project and won't get any financial return from it.) The impact will be significant. In the past, while families might have used candles or kerosene for light at night, they'll now easily be able to use bright LED lights and charge other small appliances. 'Children can study in the evening,' Blin says. 'People can work in the evening . . . This extends the daytime that people can use.' It can help enable internet access and refrigeration. Farmers can use the power to pump water on their fields, or run equipment to make new products, such as peanut oil. Healthcare clinics can use lighting and refrigerate medicine. New jobs have been created, as local residents will maintain the new solar microgrid. In other areas where Africa GreenTec has installed solar microgrids in the past, it has seen that electrification trigger economic growth—and then there's more demand for power. Because of that, the system has been designed to adapt. The village can swap in a larger, more powerful solar microgrid when it's needed, and the original Solartainer can be packed up and reused. 'The previously used Solartainer Amali can be transported to the next village that is not yet electrified and can be used there again at any time,' says Rams. 'This unique feature saves production effort and resources and reduces our carbon footprint.' The work is part of a much larger trend: Solar microgrids are quickly spreading across Africa. In Zambia, as one example, the government has installed 45 microgrids in rural communities, with plans for another 200 by next year, and 1,000 over the next few years, with support from nonprofits, the UN, and other funders. In Nigeria, World Bank funding has helped millions of people access electricity from solar microgrids in recent years. Last year, World Bank lending for off-grid solar projects reached $660 million. The World Bank Group has also partnered with the African Development Bank with a goal of connecting 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa to electricity by 2030. Those larger efforts dwarf what a single company can do. Still, Africa GreenTec says that ChargePoint's support meant that the village of Keur Ndiangane likely got power faster than it otherwise would have. 'Without ChargePoint's financing, implementing the project would have been extremely difficult,' Rams says. ChargePoint, founded in California in 2007, has been navigating a difficult period, with net losses of $282.9 million in the fiscal year ending in January, and around 250 jobs cut in 2024. It's also earning less money now from carbon credits, because the value of carbon credits has fallen. Still, its network of EV chargers continues to grow, and the company expects to invest in electrifying another village. 'I'd like to see more companies support things like this,' Blin says.
