Issue 1

Introducing 32 Degrees 

Welcome to the inaugural issue of 32 Degrees, the newsletter of Ice Energy.

This is an exciting time in the energy storage business, with projects of all types gaining momentum with utilities across North America and beyond. As one of the leaders in energy storage – delivering cost-effective, grid-scale storage systems closing in on six million run hours – we’re looking forward to keeping you up to date on what’s hot in energy storage, thermal or otherwise.  

Count on 32 Degrees to fulfill that mission.

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No Sweat: Energy storage helps Glendale city workers beat the heat on the hottest day in history

Late last Summer, as Southern California broiled under triple-digit temperatures – hitting a record high of 113 degrees in downtown Los Angeles – air conditioners across the Southland worked overtime, straining the grid to peak demand levels.

But the air conditioners on a number of city buildings in Glendale - part of a unique energy storage project now underway between the Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA), municipal utility Glendale Water & Power (GWP) and Ice Energy - actually used 95% less energy during the peak of the day.

And the coolest thing?   

None of the hundreds of employees in the City’s Public Works, Engineering & Building Permits, Traffic, Planning, and Industrial Safety departments, nor the citizens who visited the Glendale Municipal Services Building or nearby City Hall that day, could feel the difference. 

Unlike load management cycling or other demand curtailment programs that raise the thermostat and turn down the air conditioning to reduce electricity demand – making things hotter for customers and employees – GWP’s Ice Bear project enables commercial buildings to reduce peak electricity demand without any noticeable change, even on the hottest days.

The project is part of an innovative program from GWP to slow the growth of peak electrical demand and reduce exposure to costly peak power by installing distributed thermal energy storage systems from Ice Energy on commercial buildings throughout the City, to fundamentally change how – and more importantly when – energy is consumed for air conditioning.

It works by storing energy at night, directly on individual buildings, and delivering that energy the following day to provide cooling to the building’s air conditioning system. Essentially, it uses off-peak energy to meet daytime air-conditioning demand, the single largest contributor to peak summer loads.

Despite the extreme late summer heat, which drove recorded root-top temperatures on City buildings above 115 degrees, the installed Ice Bear units worked flawlessly, delivering uninterrupted cooling comfort on peak, while significantly reducing daytime energy demand.

Just the tip of the Ice Bear, uh, berg.  

GWP is in the final stages of installing 1.5 Megawatts of energy storage on Glendale city buildings and local businesses under a $4.25 million program, part of the initial rollout of a groundbreaking 53 MW distributed energy storage project between Ice Energy and members of the Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA). SCPPA is an association of municipal utilities that reach from the Inland Empire to the northeast portions of Los Angeles County.

The majority of the program in Glendale is being underwritten through $20 million in federal stimulus funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for GWP’s Smart Grid project, which includes an advanced metering program for electricity, in addition to energy storage, to help increase efficiency and reduce energy consumption.

Under the initial phase of the program, aging, inefficient air conditioning units on 28 Glendale city facilities are being replaced with new, higher-efficiency units. These new units are being paired with Ice Bear energy storage systems to create a hybrid cooling and storage solution like those operating today on the Municipal Services Building and City Hall.

Important to note is that the program is not limited to city buildings. Ice Energy and GWP are currently working together to identify and install Ice Bear systems on an additional 250 small to mid-sized commercial buildings throughout the City of Glendale, all funded by the program.

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Bear Necessities: Ice Bear energy storage project helps keep Toronto Zoo's Polar Bear exhibit cool and green. 

Ice Energy, Canadian utility Toronto Hydro, the Ontario Power Authority, and the Toronto Zoo recently joined forces for a unique pilot project featuring Ice Energy's Ice Bear energy storage technology and one of the Toronto Zoo's most prominent residents - the Polar Bear.

The project is both a working energy storage pilot and part of an educational exhibit for Zoo visitors that spotlights the importance of energy conservation and climate change to an endangered species like the Polar Bear. 

The Ice Bear system was installed atop the Zoo's Tundra Trek Cafe, adjacent to the popular Polar Bear exhibit. Says John Tracogna, Toronto Zoo CEO, “This project is great for many reasons, but especially because it promotes the connection between biodiversity conservation in the high Arctic and energy choices in more southern regions.” 

Besides helping polar bears and saving the planet, the system is also helping to save money for the Zoo. More than $700 every cooling season, according to Zoo officials.

While Toronto's north-of-the-border locale may seem a bit unusual for an Ice Bear deployment, it's not. In fact, according to Chris Tomasini, Northeast regional manager for Ice Energy, the load profile of Canada's Ontario province is particularly well-suited for this type of energy storage. “With its large, thermally-driven summer peak, and the potential to integrate substantial new generation from wind and solar, the Ice Bear solution can deliver immediate, measurable benefits to the region,” he explained.

To learn more, check out the Zoo’s video.    

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Do you know Ice?

Frederic Tudor did. Nicknamed Boston’s “Ice King,” Tudor made a fortune in the 1800s shipping ice to Europe, India and the Caribbean from fresh-water sources in New England. (The Caribbean without ice? Unthinkable.) While there was plenty of “shrinkage” en route, it was hardly enough to sink Tudor’s ice-ship enterprise. On one four-month delivery run in 1833, 180 tons of ice left Boston and 100 tons arrived in Calcutta. 

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  Ice Energy on the Road: DistribuTECH 2011  

Visit us @ DistribuTECH in Booth 733  

Think you know storage? 

There's more to distributed energy storage than meets the eye when it comes to understanding its full value to energy system efficiency and utility operations. 

Take our Ice-Q test and see how well you score. 

Then take a few minutes to explore a working Ice Bear unit, get a hands-on demonstration of our smart grid-enabled CoolData Controller, and learn more about how distributed storage resources can be aggregated to grid-scale and managed in real time to meet your business objectives.

Click here for further details.  

See you in San Diego!