Latest / North Shore News / Loyalist Township a potential home for North America’s first hydrogen peaking plant

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Loyalist Township a potential home for North America’s first hydrogen peaking plant · North Shore News

• 0:00
  Public Energy Incorporated is looking at converting the old Kingston Generation plant in Loyalist
• 0:06
  Township into North America's first hydrogen-peaking plant.
• 0:10
  This type of plant produces hydrogen at night when energy costs are cheaper and stores it
• 0:15
  to be sold when it's needed.
• 0:17
  The company presented council with plans at their year-end meeting and spoke about the
• 0:20
  benefits of hydrogen.
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  The retired plant is located on Taylor Kidd Boulevard and has access to Lake Ontario.
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  The plan would include an investment of $400 million into Loyalist Township and nearly
• 0:32
  130 new jobs brought to the area.
• 0:35
  Chairman of Public Energy Inc. John Douglas explains the conversion process and their
• 0:39
  willingness to rename the facility.
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  We started looking for a retired gas project that had an interconnection that we could
• 0:48
  use and basically replace those gas turbines with new 100% hydrogen turbines, which is
• 0:57
  what we're proposing to do for the Kingston power plant.
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  We're quite happy to let whoever rename that facility, whether it's Loyalist Generating
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  Station or Loyalist Hydrogen Station.
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  Douglas spoke about the jobs it could create in the area and noted the interest they've
• 1:16
  had from large companies.
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  The thing to keep in mind is we're talking about a $400 million project that will generate
• 1:23
  100 construction jobs, probably 15 to 20 great operational jobs for the 30-year life.
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  This will be the first such hydrogen peaker plant in North America.
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  We have both GE and Siemens that are pretty keen to be the first.
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  Douglas notes the unique opportunity Ontario provides.
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  A common way to make hydrogen is through a chemical process using an electrolyzer.
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  There's been around for a long time.
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  There's nothing new there.
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  But Ontario offers a unique opportunity for this because, of course, at night, our electricity
• 2:03
  is pretty cheap.
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  So we're proposing to make hydrogen at night with cheap electricity, like for a penny a
• 2:10
  kilowatt, and storing that hydrogen on site to burn in a turbine to make electricity when
• 2:22
  it's required.
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  Douglas spoke about the support they've received and the steps they'll need to take going forward.
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  We've spent the past year talking to the Ministry of Energy.
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  We first started with Minister Smith, but now, of course, we have Minister Leche and
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  his assistant deputy, Minister Oosterhof.
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  So they're very familiar with this project.
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  They really like it.
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  So does the Premier.
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  So we have lots of political support.
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  But I think as we've learned from the LT1 exercise, municipal support is critical now.
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  There's all kinds of new regulations from an agricultural perspective on renewable energy
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  brought in by not just the provincial government, but by the federal government.
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  So there's lots of check marks that need to be acquired for a project like this.
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  Douglas details the history of how he and co-founder Dr. Dennis Stein came up with the
• 3:14
  plan.
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  Dennis and I go back a fair ways.
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  So when he came to Canada, we started working together on sort of what's going to be the
• 3:23
  next big thing.
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  And so we decided that distributed generation will be part of the future.
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  Dennis advised the German government on their energy transition, and people were just starting
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  to talk about that back then.
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  And so we started Public Energy.
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  It's based in Toronto.
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  We're an independent power producer.
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  We own and operate power plants in Ontario, and currently we operate seven power plants
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  for industrial customers.
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  Stein talks about the benefits of hydrogen.
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  It's probably the first molecule that was created in the universe because it's the simplest
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  molecule and it has the highest energy density of everything that we know in our nature.
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  So it's a great energy storage device.
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  And using electricity as an energy form that can be transferred from, as we said, from
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  the great at night into the hydrogen and back into the electricity is actually from the
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  physical perspective excellent way to advance the power systems in this province.
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  It's really about providing a service that's carbon free, that's sustainable, and that's
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  superior to a battery service, I would say, in that case.
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  Stein explains the value of the service they propose to offer.
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  This is not about electricity and energy.
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  This is about the service that this hydrogen can provide to the grid.
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  So the value, we are not buying once a kilowatt hour and then selling it for 10 cents.
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  This is not the case.
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  So we are selling them a service that they can call whenever they want.
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  And that service has a value that goes way beyond kilowatt hour pricing.
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  So it's not really about kind of gaming the one cent against 10 cents.
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  It's really about having an equipment that produces that service and that's electricity
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  and at any given time and they need it and the rotating mass and inertia and all of that
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  that's coming out of this turbine.
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  It has much, much higher value at that given moment in time than I so requires than a kilowatt
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  hour they can buy on the market.
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  So they have energy markets and then a capacity market.
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  So we are turning energy into the capacity basically and selling this as a capacity service.
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  Douglas explains why a unique situation with power creation in Ontario makes this a good
• 5:45
  time to consider switching to hydrogen.
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  People in Canada were talking about, hey, let's make hydrogen to export to Germany or
• 5:54
  let's make hydrogen to use for the transportation business.
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  When we started, we came up with a different concept mostly from Dennis's sort of experience
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  and expertise of, hey, let's make hydrogen with this super cheap energy at night.
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  And sometimes in Ontario with our nuclear power, we can't turn off our nukes.
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  So we actually pay Americans to take our power.
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  It's bid negative at night like we'll pay them a penny or sometimes two cents to take
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  the energy because we can't afford to turn off a nuke.
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  If you turn off a nuclear reactor, it might take six months to turn it back on because
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  you have to go through all this protocol.
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  So that's the unique situation of Ontario and why we think it makes this an incredible
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  opportunity for growth and for investment.
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  Douglas notes the environmental impact the plant could have.
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  Companies like Volkswagen and these large global manufacturers, they care about carbon
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  now because their boards are saying they want suppliers that have a low carbon footprint.
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  So by setting up shop in Ontario, they're basically ahead of the game.
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  So we have a green grid.
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  We're going to help green the grid here by a hydrogen peaker plant.
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  Douglas speaks about the future of the project and its benefits.
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  We will be looking for municipal resolution of support at some point.
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  We're talking about is 100% emission free, a $400 million project that will be one of
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  the first and a unique opportunity to make it almost like a hydrogen sort of energy center
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  that will attract more interest and could be used as a kind of a center of excellence.
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  We're talking about basically off the shelf components used in a new way.
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  That's the innovation that we're proposing.
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  Mayor Jim Hagedorn noted his interest.
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  Producing power from hydrogen is kind of intriguing to me, so I've been quite interested in this.
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  Councillor Paul Proderick noted a potential hang up in the process.
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  The emission thing, I think that's unique.
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  The one thing that obviously in the starting stages is some kind of safety plan that's communicated
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  to the community because I think in past experiences that has been a major roadblock.
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  For Amherst Island Radio and the Local Journalism Initiative, I'm Ted Evans.
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  This is North Shore News.