Towering over the Lactalis dairy in Etobicoke are two giant metal silos filled with cream ready to be cultured into yogurt.

Tucked into the shade beneath them is a white shipping container filled with batteries ready to step in at a moment’s notice and power the entire plant.

The industrial-scale batteries are an innovative way one of Canada’s oldest businesses is using technology to save money, reduce its carbon footprint and relieve pressure on the electrical grid. Deployed widely, these kinds of batteries could play a significant role in reducing Canada’s carbon emissions and building a net-zero economy.

The Lactalis batteries kick in whenever there’s a micro-outage — a tiny fluctuation in the power feeding the plant — that can reduce the temperature of the pasteurization process and wreck an entire batch of yogurt.

They also activate when the grid is straining under peak demand, and the province activates its fleet of emissions-intensive natural gas generators, powering the plant autonomously and freeing up power for others.

The combined savings from not paying for power at peak rates — a premium which generates up to 70 per cent of the electricity bills for large, industrial users — and not having to dispose of up to 10 spoiled batches of yogurt per year adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual savings…

For years, southwestern Ontario’s political and business leaders — particularly in Windsor and Essex County — have been calling for action to meet growing energy demand that poses a serious challenge for the grid.

Companies have worried about making investments due to supply issues, while demand in southwestern Ontario is growing so much that last year, Ontario’s electricity regulator forecasted it would double by 2027.

We’ve heard debates over transmission lines and plants with concerns about blackouts and brownouts.

There’s now a win to celebrate, with more to come.

When Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) announced in May seven new energy storage projects in the province, it marked the largest energy storage procurement ever in Canada, adding 739 megawatts (MW) of capacity to the current 228 MW of storage currently on the grid.

While we were expecting this news, and for southwestern Ontario to be a prime area for these projects, we didn’t know when they would be completed, nor where exactly selected projects would be placed.

We are not disappointed with the results.

The IESO tapped five projects for southwestern Ontario, including four in Essex County — three projects in Windsor and one in Lakeshore account for roughly 100 MWs. In Haldimand County, a single battery storage facility will have a maximum capacity of 300 MW…

The agency that operates Ontario’s electricity system has announced procurements of power from seven new energy storage projects and increasing generation capacity at existing natural gas-fired plants.

In what it called the largest procurement of storage capacity in Canada, the Independent Electricity System Operator said it will purchase 739 megawatts of storage, predominantly from two proposed battery facilities in Hagersville and Napanee, Ont…

Electric demand in Ontario is expected to grow substantially in the next two decades, due to economic development and the predicted shift of many fossil fuel-reliant industries to electricity as part of the ongoing efforts to decarbonize.