NB Power partners with Stash Energy as part of Shediac Smart Energy Community Project

2021-10-27

Fredericton – NB Power is partnering with New Brunswick’s Stash Energy to use the company’s unique technology as part of the residential research component of the Shediac Smart Energy Community Project.  Stash heat pumps will be installed in up to 50 participants’ homes by spring 2022.

“It’s incredible to be able to work with a New Brunswick company like Stash in solving the big problems facing utilities across North America”, said NB Power’s President and CEO, Keith Cronkhite. “Their technology is unique in that it provides the kind of heating and cooling our customers want in their homes, while providing utilities the opportunity to move the need for energy for heating to off-peak times with the benefits flowing to both parties”.

The Stash Energy heat pump is the only mini-split heat pump on the market with built-in thermal energy storage and a smart grid and smart home-ready thermostat. It provides flexible heating and cooling for year-round comfort while both supporting the needs of the electrical grid and lowering customer energy costs. The real advantages come in jurisdictions with time-of-day electricity pricing at the units can be charged during cheaper off-peak hours and discharged during more expensive on-peak times.  This is part of the testing in the Shediac project.

“This project is going to demonstrate how the Stash heat pump not only saves customers money and reduces their household emissions but supports NB Power in its efforts to reduce its emissions and energy costs for all ratepayers”, said Stash Energy’s Director of Business Development and Regulatory Affairs, Dan Curwin. “By lowering peak electricity demand with our unique energy storage solution, NB Power will be able to integrate even more renewable energy and give itself more opportunity to export electricity during peak times to New England.”

With more and more customers using heat pumps and other new technologies to heat and cool their homes, it is changing how consumers are behaving and accessing energy from the grid. Currently, 80% of morning peak electricity in the winter is associated with heating – home heating and water heating. Thermal storage heat pumps will help to reduce peak energy consumption by storing energy overnight and allowing homeowners to draw from that stored heat in the morning, instead of from the grid. The added bonus is it gives us a place to store excess wind energy that is generated overnight!

“We know that the customers who are using this technology are looking for comfort and cost savings, so we are getting ready to serve a new kind of customer; one who is more technologically savvy and is concerned about climate change”, said NB Power’s Director of Smart Grid Atlantic, Brent Staeben. “The research we are conducting today is important to how NB Power can continue to serve customers needs and be positioned for what will come in the next 5, 10 and even 20 years down the road.”

The Shediac Smart Energy Community Project will help us understand new smart energy technologies and how they can benefit New Brunswickers. The Residential Energy study is one of three important projects in Shediac, the others include a new community solar farm that will be used to bring two major commercial buildings in Shediac – the town’s Multipurpose Centre and the iconic Federal Pension Centre to net zero energy use in the next two years. Both buildings have installed roof-top solar arrays and are soon installing the first commercial battery storage systems in large buildings in the province.

MEDIA CONTACT: Sheila Lagacé, Communications, NB Power, 506-458-2345 or SLagace@nbpower.com