Heather Wright/The Independent

There could some day be a clean-energy storage project in St. Clair Township.

NRStor, an energy storage company which creates several kinds of power storage plants, came to township council May 19 to talk about an air energy storage project.

The Independent Electricity Supply Operator is looking for long-term, clean energy electricity storage projects and NRStor is working on a project which they hope to put on industrial land in St. Clair Township.

“We work with various technologies to take electricity off the grid when it’s not needed, put it back on the
grid when it’s more useful,” said Inês Ribeiro Canella. That includes battery storage. NRStor has one of the largest projects in the country, a 250 MW battery storage operation in Onedia First Nation.

That’s not what the company is proposing here.

Instead the company is planning an air energy storage facility which looks like a small industrial plant, she says. The process to store the electricity, Riberio Canella says, seems a bit like magic.

Ribeiro Cannella says the company takes ambient air, “the air that we breathe, liquefy it, and cool it, as that’s how things are stored. The excess heat is kept aside later for recapture, and then, during the discharge cycle, the air is turns into gas. It’s heated, and it turns a turbine that then puts electricity onto the grid,” she said.

The proposed plant has no emissions and no waste water treatment would be required for the plant. Ribeiro Cannella says the company is considering a 100 to 200 megawatt project.

Ribeiro Cannella says the plant would be made from Canadian aluminum and steel and look much like any other industrial plant.

Unlike other storage contracts from the IESO, if the air energy project were chosen, the plant would operate for 40 years.

“Typically, these contracts are about 20 years, whereas this one will have long-term impacts and benefits for local communities.

“It also has a buy local policy provision, so every proponent will have to submit a supply chain disclosure plan, and there’s also a benefit for sourcing steel and aluminum from Canadian sources,” she says.

NRStor has already been looking for land.

“With the help of the folks at SLEP, (Sarnia Lambton Economic Partnership) they have helped us identify some sites where they know that the landowners might be interested in having an option to purchase land specifically zoned heavy industrial,” she said.

NRStor generally places their projects on industrial land, she says, “even if the environmental impact is minimal. We want to make sure that we’re not encroaching on land that would be used for other uses.”

The company actively tries to avoid building on farmland.

“These (proposed sites) are in strategic locations where there’s capacity on the high-voltage transmission lines nearby, – 230 KV lines that we would be able to connect to – and, to be clear, we don’t have any land – these are sort of the sites that we’ve been guided towards to look at as some of our best options in terms of minimal impact.”

For a 100 megawatt project, NRStor would need about 15 acres of land. The 200 MW project would need 20.

If the IESO would approve the plan, there would be significant economic benefits including in excess of 350 construction jobs to build it.

Another 15 to 20 full-time jobs and up to 30 subcontracting positions would be created.

Ribeiro says the air energy storage project would be a good fit in St. Clair.

“We know that St. Clair Township is very familiar with energy projects, so this is building on that legacy,
on that foundation, and moving it towards a more of a diverse supply mix.”

Councillors seemed receptive to the project. “I like this idea because it does not produce any emissions
because it’s clean energy, and it’s something that I think is going to go over with people that are not fond of the battery whole episode,“ said Councillor Cathy Langis. “I think I would be in support of this.”

Mayor Jeff Agar agreed saying other battery storage projects were not popular with constituents.

“We’re not really interested in that, but this is pretty awesome. It looks like a little refinery.”

The company must submit a bid by Nov. 26. It will hold a public meeting in St. Clair to explain the project
and will ask for a municipal letter of support after a public meeting is held.

The IESO will make a decision in May 2027 and it would be 2032 before the storage unit would begin storing power for the grid.