INNISFAIL - EQUS is boldly moving forward with a multi-million dollar investment to connect thousands of its rural members with what the company is heralding as Canada's first ultra-rural smart grid.
With the smart grid, the Innisfail-based rural power provider is bringing its members a network that will have rural Alberta's first fully automated metering system, based on Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI) technology developed in collaboration with Landis & Gyr, a multinational company based in Switzerland.
"Our smart grid will be the first of its kind in Canada and Alberta. I always felt strongly that we needed a system where we could see immediately when the member's power is off," said Patricia Bourne, the chief executive officer for EQUS. "AMI has been around for a while but it has never got to the point where it is now, where we can actually make it work in rural Alberta without having the internet connectivity that everybody enjoys in towns and cities. This system allowed us to do that.
"It definitely is futuristic thinking. It will increase service and reliability for our members," she said, noting when power is suddenly lost crews will be able to immediately pinpoint its origin and reduce length of outages. "We may know their power is off before they even know it's off."
Bourne added the majority of its 12,500 members across rural Alberta now read their own meters, but with the new system they will no longer do so as that will be done automatically. She added EQUS will also be able to utilize the new technology for systems planning, adding it will also be easier to connect micro-generators because meters will no longer have to be changed out.
It was in 2017 when EQUS, Canada's largest member-owned utility, started to look at different options for a new grid/metering system that would work in rural Alberta. The company began a pilot project the following year with 160 users in the Sundre area who were given the new technology that had been used earlier in larger urban centres but never in a rural setting.
"It was able to connect in areas where there was no other coverage because of the antennas we put on our poles," she said.
Once the pilot project ended it went back to the board to see what level of interest there was, "knowing it is not inexpensive", said Bourne.
The total cost of the project is $8.7 million. The company was able to acquire $2.2 million of federal government funding through Natural Resources Canada, and $500,000 of provincial funding from Alberta Innovates for the AMI. EQUS' share of the total cost is $6 million.
Bourne said EQUS is now in the process of installing all the other equipment for the new system, like collectors and receivers. She said as soon as the newest state-of-the-art meter is approved by Measurement Canada, believed to be on Oct. 15, installation will begin shortly after. Bourne added that within two years all of EQUS' 12,500 members will have the new ultra-modern meters.
In the meantime, the CEO said construction of the company's new Innisfail-based headquarters, which is budgeted at between $5 and $6 million, is going well, with framing complete on the first floor and the structure expected to be fully closed in by the end of the month.
She said it's expected the future facility at the two-and-a-half-acre east-side site along Highway 2A will be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2020.
