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Message from the Chair of Economic Development





 
Summerside has achieved much in terms of Economic Growth and Diversification over the past decade and we are proud of where we are at.  However, our work is yet to be completed and to that end, we are turning to a more focused approach of growing our industrial and commercial tax base.  Since assuming this economic development portfolio in December both Vice Chair Councillor Doiron and I have had the opportunity to better understand the challenges facing economic growth in Summerside. We as a Council and our partners in Economic Development are acting now to adopt a more future-looking perspective and concentrating as a priority on growing our business enterprise in Summerside.  This will allow us to deliver the high standard services our residents demand and deserve, foster employment and economic opportunities for our youth and support and help our existing businesses to grow and continue to prosper.

We need a stronger, more diverse business base as, without that, our ability to deliver sustainable and cost-effective services to our citizens will be compromised in the long term., A strong, diverse business base is critical if we hope to transform Summerside and retain our youth, attract young families and support our current business community.  We are setting ourselves on the path in 2019 to heighten the investment and business growth opportunities in Summerside and looking to be more proactive in working with our business community, partners, and foreign investors to grow Summerside.   

We believe our role as a council is to lead and champion our shared vision for prosperity: Build a stronger and more diverse economy and deliver to our residents a more sustainable model for our community and, in the coming four years, to look for partners to champion the growth in Summerside.    

Last month we informed the Council of our desire to advance a 4-year strategy for economic development. This evening, on behalf of Co-Chair Councillor Doiron, Director Mike Thususka and myself, I am pleased to report that we are continuing our effort to develop a 4-year action strategy to address our future that will focus on bringing a healthier balance to our tax revenue over the next 4 years. 

Specifically, our goal is to bring a strategy forward to Council for consideration that will grow the percentage of our Industrial/Commercial tax base from its current 18.6% to a minimum of 21% over the next four years. We believe this to be an achievable goal with the right approach and partners willing to invest in our future. 

We will accomplish this by supporting our strategies with three foundational pillars.
 
  1. We will develop more business-friendly and responsive program tools, including but not limited to special initiatives aimed at business retention and attraction.
  2. We will cultivate productive relationships with both the private and public sectors to multiply our resources and effectiveness.
  3. We will communicate in a more proactive way our strengths, vision, ambitions and specific goals to heighten the awareness of where we want to go.
What does this mean and why now?  We know that change and sustainability will not come if we wait for some other person or organization to lead it or if we defer it to another time. The status quo will not suffice. We realize Summerside is blessed with a quality of place not found in many cities across our country.  But we must understand that our outstanding amenities need commercial/industrial revenue in order to sustain them, support them and substantively grow our City responsibly and our current approach is not fundamentally addressing this.

We are committed to taking the lead and embracing a change for the better which is not meant to substitute our current efforts, but enhance our current mandate and make Summerside an even greater place to call home.  It will help our team, our organization, our partners and our community to focus and understand where we want to be in 4 years which is a more diverse and fiscally sound community laying the foundation for a community we want tomorrow, today.  We are calling on all our partners that want to invest to contact us today as we are committed to working with businesses to make things happen.  

 
 
The value of our Municipally Owned Utility
 
BluWave-ai is pleased to announce the performance testing results from its cleantech energy partnership with the City of Summerside, PEI. Like many utilities in Canada, Summerside was looking for opportunities to reduce its energy costs and maximize the use of local renewable energy sources. Adding renewable energy sources like wind and solar is a logical choice for communities like Summerside, but there remain some challenges to managing fluctuations in load with the peaks and troughs of renewable energy supply and grid power real-time pricing.
 
Enter BluWave-ai. The company’s machine learning platform collects volumes of data from IoT sensors around Summerside’s grid to predict, optimize, and dispatch control to maximize the use of renewable sources and reduce the city’s overall energy spend.
 
“Summerside has deployed wind, solar and storage to reduce energy costs, offsetting diesel and imported grid power creating the most integrated, advanced smart grid in North America with diversified renewable sources,” said Greg Gaudet, Director of Municipal Services at the City of Summerside. “Our test results with BluWave-ai has allowed us to quantify the impact of using AI for improving how we use our deployed renewable energy hardware to reduce overall energy use and import from the main North American grid to our island community. We now plan to go into a live operational phase. This innovation will help other Canadian and global utilities advance energy efficiency.”
 
“The ongoing shift towards decentralized distributed generation opens up new energy possibilities for cities around the globe and we are extremely honoured to work with energy innovators like Summerside,” said BluWave-ai Founder and CEO, Devashish Paul. “Our platform optimizes energy decisions for sustainability and affordability with high six-figure monetary savings typical for every 10 MW — 20 MW of user load where large renewable energy penetration is present.”
 
Not surprisingly, other communities are getting serious about more sustainable and cost-effective energy choices. According to GlobalData, the renewable share of the global energy mix is forecast to increase to 22.5% in 2020, almost tripling from 2010. “The time is right to take our Canada-based innovation global and we’ve already signed Tata Power in India,” stated Paul. “We’ve also been invited to join the Canadian trade delegation to London later this month as part of the Canada-UK Power Forward Challenge program.” The program, which is sponsored by Natural Resources Canada and the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, provides proof-of-concept funding for joint Canadian-UK company collaborations to develop cleantech solutions for a more sustainable and resilient grid. As part of the Power Forward Challenge UK’s Green Cat Renewables and BluWave-ai are partnered to deploy an AI-enabled commercial-scale microgrid to address the unique challenges of communities operating on the grid periphery with limited access to reliable, renewable and affordable energy sources.
 
In support of the Power Forward Challenge initiative, BluWave-ai has been selected to travel to London, UK as part of a delegation of 15 Canadian companies for a programme of briefings, meetings, and matchmaking with UK companies and key stakeholders in the energy sector.
 
About BluWave-ai
 
BluWave-ai uses artificial intelligence to put the smart in a smart grid. Our machine learning platform balances the cost, availability, and reliability of different energy sources — renewable and non-renewable — with energy demand in real-time. We let utilities, enterprises, remote communities, and governments optimize their energy decisions for sustainability, reliability, and affordability. BluWave-ai is pleased to work with innovators in the energy industry including Tata Power, Hydro Ottawa, and Natural Resources Canada to realize a greener, more sustainable grid for all.

 
 

City of Summerside International Accolade
 
On behalf of the International Smart Grid Action Network (ISGAN), I am pleased to announce that the city of Summerside has been selected as one of the ‘Honorable Mentions’ of the 2019 ISGAN Award of Excellence. For this annual round of the Award competition, 16 submissions were received from 10 nations from around the world, signifying the breadth of recognition for smart microgrids. The selection of the ISGAN Award of Excellence Winning projects was made by a highly distinguished international jury composed in collaboration with the Global Smart Grid Federation (GSGF). While your project, ‘City of Summerside Mypowernet’, was not selected as the Winner of the 2019 ISGAN Award of Excellence, the jury recognized your project as one of the 6 ‘Honorable Mentions’ amongst all projects submitted. This selection by the jury identifies your efforts as an outstanding example of microgrid applications.
 
In this regard, we would like to recognize your project by publishing a brief description and information about sponsoring organizations on the ISGAN website and in relevant future ISGAN publications. By highlighting your distinguished and exemplary project, we hope to share some of the innovative and effective approaches used in your project to enhance smart grid development among other stakeholders.

You are also invited to an awards ceremony at the end of May in Vancouver, Canada where your project will be recognized as the Winner of the ISGAN Award of Excellence. This ceremony is being held as part of the tenth Clean Energy Ministerial Meeting (CEM10), a global forum to share best practices and promote policies and programs that support the ongoing transition to a global clean energy economy. It would be highly appreciated if you could kindly inform the Awards Administrator (KSGI) of your willingness to join the ceremony at CEM10 at your earliest convenience. Further information on the ceremony and relevant side events will be provided shortly.

Once again, we thank you for submitting your project for the ISGAN Award of Excellence and congratulations on being selected as an Honorable Mention. We wish you great success in transforming your current project experiences into future projects, contributing to realizing a smart grid future.

 
 
If interested in learning more about investment opportunities, economic development support or opportunities for growth, please call our Economic Development Professionals.
We would love to chat.

Alternatively, you can email us at mike@summerside.ca
It could be 
the most profitable email you have ever sent.

Michael Thususka
Director of Economic Development City of Summerside
275 Fitzroy Street, Summerside PE C1N 1H9
M: 902.432.0103, E: mike@summerside.ca


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