Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A growing number of countries are experimenting with ways to integrate electric vehicle batteries and rooftop solar systems into their energy grids to enhance stability. While BC Hydro is conducting trials with EV batteries in the Lower Mainland, the utility’s current emphasis is on rewarding customers who reduce their energy consumption during evening peak periods. In today’s interview, Brandon Young, Director of Energy Efficiency and Innovation at BC Hydro, discusses the Peak Saver program and possible next steps for integrating residential customers into grid-stability initiatives.
Brandon Young: “There’s two main avenues for customers to participate:”
“They can participate behaviourally. What we do over a course of generally a winter period, is ‘call events.’ We send them an email or text message prior to an event, which generally takes place during the evening for about four hours. If those customers are able to reduce their usage by 20% over the four hours, they redeem a $3 reward. Over the course of the season, those rewards add up.”
“The other avenue is they are also able to automatically enrol devices. Most of those are smart thermostats for baseboard heaters and during those events that allows us to automatically turn down the thermostat a couple degrees achieving the savings we need. For a thermostat, they'll receive $50 a year. We also have seasonal amounts for level two chargers if they have electric vehicles as well as batteries. Batteries can be up to $250 per season.”
For BC Hydro, the program reduces peak demand and helps defer or avoid capital investments needed to meet growing electricity needs.
Brandon Young: “W e have almost 150,000 customers participating across the province. The majority of those are behavioral, but definitely a growing number of customers on the enrollment side and a really high satisfaction rate. Less than 1% of customers that enrol choose to no longer participate.”
Cortes Currents: What about people with solar and batteries?
Brandon Young: “Self-generation and net metering are designed to reduce a home’s reliance on the grid, and battery storage can help during peak periods. Eligible home batteries can be enrolled in Peak Saver whether or not a customer has solar panels. By allowing the home to rely on its battery during the four-hour event window, customers can earn $250 per season.”
Cortes Currents: Residential battery customers (with or without solar) are assured that peak saving events will not exceed four hours, during which their batteries will not go below 20% of capacity. They will retain manual override of their batteries throughout this period and at the end of the four hours the device will return to its normal settings.
“BC Hydro also offers incentives of up to $5,000 for residential battery installations. If a battery is eligible for Peak Saver enrolment, a customer may receive a $500 enrolment bonus and $250 each year thereafter. Over ten years, that could total $2,500, helping to offset bills or initial installation costs.”
Germany’s path toward a net-zero grid is expected to include leveraging parked EVs whose batteries are often unused during the day. BC Hydro has not yet scaled two-way, vehicle-to-grid energy flows for mass market use, but the utility is running trials—particularly with short-range commercial fleets.
Young explained, “Right now we have a pretty substantive trial with Lynch bus line school buses in the Lower Mainland, where they charge in our off peak periods and then again can inject power back to the grid during peak, reducing that peak demand.”
“We do have a number of shorter range distribution cargo companies as well. Longer term, one of our bigger pieces is for sure looking at scaling to mass market or residential customers as well.”
