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Oneida Energy Storage Facility in Nanticoke First of its Kind in Canada by Brian Thompson The Expositor, June 27, 2025

"I just never imagined it would get this big"

It's understandable Northland Power wants to show off its new Oneida Energy Storage facility in Nanticoke.

The company and its partners did just that during a media tour of the site located on Concession 2 Walpole -- adjacent to the Imperial Oil refinery and power transmission lines from the former coal-fired generating station.

The facility became fully operational in May, and is a partnership of Northland Power, NRStor, Aecon, Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation, and Mississaugas of the Credit Business Corporation.

"It's a very exciting milestone that we're at today," said Nick Zsofcsin, project director and head of energy storage for Northland Power, last week. "The Oneida Battery Storage Project is a first-of-a-kind large battery project in Canada, here in Ontario. It is 250 megawatts at four-hour duration using lithium iron phosphate technology, which is considered a safer, more controlled, non-toxic version of a lithium-ion battery.

"This is one of the largest in the world, a really meaningful site when it comes to energy storage in general on a global scale," he said. "You will be seeing a lot more of these types of projects in Canada as well as around the world. There is massive growth in the energy storage industry."

Zsofcsin explained the province's nuclear generators at Bruce Power and Darlington/Pickering make up the bulk of the electricity supply, "but sometimes at night we have excess nuclear power and the price goes negative -- in fact we pay other jurisdictions to take that electricity from us -- so there was a huge opportunity for energy storage to take that electricity and move it to other times of the day to balance out the grid.

"I just never imagined it would get this big," he shared. "These partners had an amazing vision to do something of this scale."

Zsofcsin noted that current peak electricity consumption in the summer in Ontario is between 20,000 and 25,000 MW, a figure that he expects will double by the year 2050. The Oneida Energy Storage facility has a capacity of 250 MW, which is about one per cent of the entire grid.

More than 180 workers were involved at the peak of construction, putting in over 300,000 person hours with no lost-time incidents. About 40 employees of A6N -- a general partnership formed between Aecon Construction and Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation (SNGRDC) -- did the site preparation work and are now heading to the Hagersville Battery Storage project that is to be commissioned in the next few months.

The project is valued at just under $700 million with financing from the Canada Infrastructure Bank covering much of the build.

"We knew fairly early on, in 2017, that large-scale grid-connected storage was going to be a catalyst for change," said Matt Jamieson, CEO of SNGRDC. "It took a long time to convince the system operator and stakeholders that this was the right thing to do. This project was a transformative asset for the energy markets, and we're proud to play a role."

Jamieson noted that the Oneida name was adopted for the project because consideration was initially given to build at the Oneida Business Park on Six Nations. The Nanticoke site was later chosen due to its good point of interconnection with the grid, and location next to major industrial loads such as Imperial Oil and Stelco.

Along with the socio-economic impact of job creation, Jamieson noted that SNGRDC is an investor in the project with greater than 10 per cent ownership interest.

"That investment will yield dividends that will flow back to the community over the next 20 years," he explained. "It's valuable and meaningful. Several million dollars a year will flow to the community."

Warren Sault, president and CEO for the Mississaugas of the Credit Business Corporation that holds a 2.7 per cent ownership in the project, said it represents a great economic development opportunity for First Nations.

"Our involvement in this project is one step towards wealth creation for First Nations," he shared. "Our involvement creates inspiration for community members to be involved in training and employment in the clean energy sector."