Large scale renewable energy in Ontario took a big hit this week when the province announced the suspension of its Large Renewable Procurement (LRP) Program. But the case for smaller systems particularly when they are combined with energy storage still makes a lot of sense.

First of the advantages of adding distributed energy storage to renewables such as rooftop solar are pretty well known. Firming up the intermittent nature of solar is the most obvious. Going beyond the study of a single solar+storage system, there are other, perhaps even more significant, benefits.

Virtual power plants are possible by integrating a vast number of energy storage devices in an electric utility’s distribution network. This means that rather than having a central power plant, a whole bunch of little ones are connected, the capacity aggregated, and they can be made to operate as if they were a single unit.

PowerStream is doing this on a small scale with its 20-home PowerHouse deployment. It hopes with changes to net metering, expected to be in place next July, to make this a much broader offering. Sunverge, the energy storage platform provider, is involved in other similar trials around the world. (More on net metering and the PowerHouse initiative is HERE and HERE.)

There are other uses for energy storage combined with renewables that can help utilities deal with localized grid congestion, too. In an interview with Neetika Sathe, VP of corporate development at PowerStream earlier this month, she spoke about locational congestion and the ability of renewables+storage to deal with the issue.

What is locational congestion? Sathe explained this happens when industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) customers strain a local distribution company’s (LDC) network in a certain geographic area. The result is that a utility may have to add more distribution network capacity into that location so as to deal with increased load. By adding rooftop solar and energy storage to a building or multiple buildings in that area, the LDC will be able to defer investment.

Canadian Green Tech also learned of a potentially new application for distributed energy storage in recent interviews.

ONEnergy VP of energy efficiency sales Sandro Costa talked about a technology it’s working with that could see individual units in an apartment or condo building pull electricity from a centralized unit. It would allow “the distribution of stored power through any unit that’s within the facility that needs power and can pull power from the source.”

In a nutshell, this can be seen as a virtual power plant but on an individual building basis. It could also be viewed as a grid-connected microgrid in an urban setting.

All this to say that while large scale renewables got slammed this week from the Ontario government - perhaps rightly so because there is so much supply in the province and a demand curve that isn’t growing - smaller renewable energy systems combined with energy storage have a big future in Ontario, and elsewhere.

The above two examples are just the tip of the iceberg.