Ontario-based BluWave‐ai has opened a Canadian smart-grid AI centre of excellence in the city of Summerside on Prince Edward Island in partnership with Summerside Electric.

The centre consists of wind farm, solar array, battery storage, grid connection, smart metering assets and a cloud-based AI optimisation platform with networking to users internationally. It will serve as a real-world AI test centre and support customers worldwide.

BluWave‐ai has been collaborating with Summerside Electric since 2018, using artificial intelligence analytics to optimise integration of renewable energy assets leveraging the physical renewable energy assets in the live test bed at the local utility.

In November 2021, BluWave‐ai and the city of Summerside announced the completion of the first-end to-end AI‐optimised grid in North America, the first industry proof point of a scalable system applicable to entire regions and countries for transitioning energy networks towards increasing the use of renewable assets.

BluWave-ai has recently been awarded a major contract to advance Summerside’s system utility manager software to integrate a new 26MW solar and battery project.

Summerside was picked for the centre because of its easy access to a world leading living testbed. The combination of smart grid assets and BluWave-ai intelligence is said to put the city ahead of any utility in Canada and several years ahead of climate pledges outlined at the recent Cop 26 summit.

“As many jurisdictions transition to a low carbon economy and integrate more renewables into their portfolio, the challenges of managing, predicting and forecasting production has always been a huge undertaking,” said Devashish Paul, CEO of BluWave‐ai. “BluWave‐ai has been working with Summerside Electric successfully for over three years inside the live testbed, validating and proving that AI optimisation and efficiency is possible and proving itself out in Summerside. By setting up this centre in Summerside we have a global competitive advantage with a real‐world test centre already invested in by the city that leverages data and renewable assets that the rest of Canada and the world are only catching up with.”

The first version of the intelligent centre of excellence is fully operational, combining the renewable and distributed resources at the utility and BluWave-ai’s cloud-based edge and centre platform. The centre hosts various smart grid software products, executing end-to-end grid optimisation from ingesting raw data in real time to optimising the grid operation, all in the cloud.

Future releases will enable third-party researchers and labs, in Canada and internationally, to access and load synthesised data and AI models from the centre cloud, and tailor them for their own deployments with different physical assets to speed up their energy transition projects.

“Building on our achievements in three continents, we are inaugurating the next-generation smart grid platform, capable of real-time deployment and execution of forecasting and optimisation across Canadian and international operations,” said Mostafa Farrokhabadi, vice president of technology at BluWave-ai. “We combine state-of-the-art software, smart grids and machine-learning engineering to bring the pivotal breakthrough that reduces computational and financial burdens in sustainable energy. Our data-driven pan-application framework leverages the centre of excellence testbed to offer researchers in industry and academia a much-needed standardised test and development platform in data-driven energy transition.”

Leah Lawrence, president of Sustainable Development Technologies Canada, added: “We are proud to have supported the early innovation in 2019 to help create the foundational AI innovations by BluWave-ai on which the partners are building this centre of excellence. Having a centre with plans to recruit researchers and university graduates from across Atlantic Canada with AI, renewable energy and power systems expertise is a great development for the pan Canadian cleantech economy.”

And Brian McFeely, chair of Summerside Economic Development, said: “We know that as jurisdictions around the world are transitioning to a greener economy, look to grow their economies and attract the knowledge economy, this type of collaboration and commitment is key to growing our net zero economy in Summerside. BluWave‐ai has demonstrated their desire to service global markets in Summerside and attract talent, as well as grow and contribute to Summerside’s cleantech sector. The establishment of the centre is further evidence of the quality‐of‐life attraction for tech workers and Summerside’s value proposition in the growing cleantech sector.”