BC Institute of Technology’s (BCIT) Energy OASIS Demonstration Project

BCIT's Energy OASIS (Open Access to Sustainable Intermittent Sources) project demonstrates solutions that could be employed to help reduce the impact of fast-charging on the electric grid.  BCIT proposed the project in 2011 and was awarded $2.4M from the Government of Canada's Clean Energy Fund initiative.

The project officially kicked-off in June 2012 with a multi-stakeholder partnership between BC Hydro, Panasonic Eco Solutions Canada (PESCA), Siemens Canada, Schneider Electric, and car2go.  The OASIS system components included: a 500 kWh Li-ion Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), a 250 kW solar photovoltaic (PV) system, 2 DC Fast Charge (DCFC) stations for electric vehicles (EV), and a highly sophisticated energy management system (EMS).  The EMS would perform energy planning, as well as energy balancing between solar PV system generation, EV charging loads, battery energy storage system, and local power distribution grid.

The system can “island” itself from the electrical grid, for example in times of grid blackout, and continue to deliver electricity and charge EVs with either generated or stored energy.