Paul Murphy, President and CEO, Ontario IESO

Toronto, ON, Canada --- (METERING.COM) --- January 3, 2013 - Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) is to increase the participation of alternative technologies including aggregated loads, flywheels and battery storage in the electricity market with the supply of regulation service from three new suppliers.

The suppliers are ENBALA Power Networks Inc., NRStor Incorporated, and Renewable Energy Systems Canada Inc.

These vendors were selected following a request for proposals issued earlier this year, in which the IESO sought to procure up to 10 MW of regulation from alternative sources. To acquire experience with a range of technologies, multiple vendors were sought, each providing a small quantity of regulation.

“Real time, real world experience with new sources of regulation will allow us to see how non-traditional resources behave,” said Paul Murphy, president and CEO of the IESO. “Engaging and empowering new participants will provide much needed flexibility in the way we run the power system, which is important in the context of our changing supply mix.”

Regulation is a contracted service that acts to match total generation on the system with total demand on a second-by-second basis. By helping to correct small, sudden changes in power system frequency, it balances power flows and maintains the reliability of the power system. This quick response is becoming increasingly important to facilitate more renewable resources like wind and solar, whose output is variable in nature.

ENBALA Power Networks,a Canadian smart grid company that operates a demand side storage network, starting early 2013 will deliver an aggregated network of demand side storage, growing to 4 MW.

NRStor Inc., of Toronto, which was established in 2012 to accelerate the commercialization of energy storage technologies, in partnership with Temporal Power, an Ontario developer of the world's highest energy flywheel technology, and Ontario Power Generation, one of North America's largest producers of electricity and a current provider of regulation service in Ontario, will deliver 2 MW of regulation service by ensuring fast response energy to optimally provide this grid balancing service.

RES Canada, based in Montreal,which offers a full suite of development and construction services for wind, solar, storage and transmission projects, will deliver Ontario's first battery regulation service, to be installed be in southwestern Ontario.