Quinte Energy Storage Centre project granted noise bylaw exemption by Napanee Council

Hydrostor Inc. returned to Greater Napanee to make another presentation to Council and ask for a noise exemption for its energy storage project.

Shaheer Aziz, Vice President of Business Development at Hydrostor, and Nyree Grimes, Senior Manager of Development, presented a deputation to the Council of the Town of Greater Napanee at its regular meeting on Tuesday, Apr. 8, 2025. They were there to provide an update on the Quinte Energy Storage Centre (QESC) project at the south end of the rural municipality, and to ask for a noise bylaw exemption for upcoming borehole testing. After some tough questioning, Council eventually granted the exemption.

Kingstonist readers will recall that Aziz had previously presented to Council in July 2023 to introduce the QESC and ask for Council’s approval of the project, an Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage (A-CAES) facility which, once operational, will help support the long-term supply options in the vicinity of the aging Lennox Generating station, according to the company. The project will be 500 megawatts (MW) with additional phases that could allow for a total capacity of 2,000 MW+ in the region. That approval was granted.

Kingston City Council, too, received a report about the project, which is estimated to create around 670 high-value jobs in Ontario during its four-year construction phase, and 40 permanent local jobs during operations.

At this point, the project has advanced, Aziz said. 

“There are several studies that we've been working on with your team… to understand the different impacts our project could have, and we're working to complete those studies before showing up to Town Council later in the year,” he said.

Aziz explained that one of the upcoming activities is a borehole program to test the geology for the underground construction of the caverns, which is why the company is seeking a noise bylaw exemption. 

“So today, we wanted to give you a high-level view of what a borehole program is and its possible impact,” the Hydrostor representative expressed. 

Aziz said the borehole program involves drilling and testing boreholes, which are deep, narrow holes in the ground. The program typically consists of drilling the borehole, collecting samples, and analyzing the collected data to gain insights into the subsurface geology and other properties.

In Ontario, borehole drilling is governed by the Ministry of Natural Resources under the Oil, Gas and Salt Resources Act.

Aziz said Hydrostor will drill boreholes to test the geology, and that drilling would be 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 

“That's important to us because it reduces our time on site by 60 [per cent], which then decreases the impacts on neighbours because we're there for a shorter period of time, and [it] also allows us to get the job done sooner,” he explained.

Grimes then gave an overview of the company's preparations for the program before asking Council for approval. She explained that noise and hydrogeology studies completed by independent consultants (SLR and Geofirma) were submitted to the Town of Greater Napanee to confirm the negligible expected impact of drilling 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on residents.

"Noise impacts on neighbours are expected to be insignificant due to distance and the noise reduction measures we will put in place.... insulated drilling equipment, noise reduction barriers (trailers) placed strategically around the drilling equipment, and strategic location of drilling activities," she said.

Grimes further stated that Hydrostor had engaged with the surrounding neighbours based on the noise assessment results. The company had executed a good neighbour agreement for the nearest resident, who is approximately 600 metres away from the project, granting permission from the landowners to proceed with 24/7 drilling operations. 

Further, Grimes told Council that on March 25, 2025, Hydrostor completed door-to-door neighbour engagement with additional residents within 1.5 kilometres of the expected drilling activities, providing program details and contact information for any questions or concerns. Hydrostor spoke directly with residents from 70 per cent of the identified households Grimes said; a letter was dropped off in their mailbox for the remaining households where residents were not available during the visit.

“So we essentially did door-to-door, going to neighbours within one-and-a-half kilometres of our proposed borehole drilling, just to make sure that they were aware of the activities that we're going to be doing. Also, the big piece was to make sure that they knew how to contact us if they had any concerns. That was something that was really important to us to make sure that they understood,” she said.

After the presentation, Councillor Bill Martin asked for clarification as to why the around-the-clock drilling was needed. 

Aziz explained, “The way the drill setup currently operates is that the drills have to basically turn on and off, on and off. If we were to stop that and only operate during normal construction hours, every time they would start up and shut down it would add an hour or two every day. This would then basically elongate the drilling time, so we'd end up drilling for almost 50 to 60 per cent additional time. So instead of being done in two to three months, we might be there for four to six months because of this starting and stopping function.”

Martin expressed concern that noise travels a long distance at night: “I don't like the idea of subjecting residents to the constant 24-hour noise for the length of time you're talking about.”

“You're absolutely right to be concerned,” Aziz replied. “We were concerned as well, and so therefore we independently ran these noise studies that we presented to the Town of Greater Napanee --- and those noise studies specifically showed that with the noise isolation equipment we're using, with the way we're parking trailers, that the net impacts to those neighbours should be negligible. And frankly, when we look at the actual impact zone, the neighbour who should be most impacted, we've engaged in a good neighbour agreement. They're aware of the drilling and the impacts for them, and they've come to an agreement on us drilling 24-7.”

Martin kept pressing: “You only checked with neighbours nearby within one-and-a-half kilometres --- you didn't contact everybody within, say, [a] five- or 10-kilometre radius?”

“Good followup question,” Aziz said. “To clarify, we entered into a good neighbour agreement with the neighbour that was approximately 600 metres away. We did not enter into one with neighbours that were further away, because our noise studies showed that those other neighbours within the 1.5-kilometre radius and beyond did not have any impacts from our drilling. So because our simulations do not show those impacts, we do not see the need to get into agreements with any further neighbours. Even with the neighbour that's 600 metres, our studies show the impacts are negligible. But because we wanted to do right by them, we did engage with them.”

This prompted Councillor Dave Pinnell to ask if the “good neighbour agreement” involved compensation.

The terms of the agreement are confidential, Aziz noted, but he reassured Pinnell, “I think what we can say to you is that we've sought permission, and we want to operate a drilling program that doesn't impact the neighbours in a negative manner. Ultimately, we know that we want to be here for the long term, and we want to work with the people here, so we're not here to do anything negative. We want to operate. We think it's more efficient for everybody to operate on a 24-7 basis.”

Pinnell acknowledged this, saying, “I hope that you can understand that when we read in your report that there is a good neighbour agreement, it does cause concerns… It makes me wonder what's going on with that agreement.”

After some more questions, Grimes pointed out that one study referred to the volume of noise they were talking about as “comparable to the background noise in a library.”

Councillor Mike Schenk said he believed Hydrostor had “done what was asked of them,” referring to the sound studies. 

“I think you have got all the bases covered,” he said.

Later in the evening, Council received the Executive Services—Noise Exemption Request—Hydrostor report from Michael Nobes, the Town's General Manager of Growth and Infrastructure.

Without further ado, Council voted to grant Hydrostor an exemption from the Town's noise bylaw to complete geotechnical drilling work, starting between May and June 2025, and commencing for a period of two to three months. The exemption will last until December 31, 2025, to provide additional flexibility in the event of any delays.

The exemption is subject to the following conditions:

• that Hydrostor follows the proposed noise mitigation plan as described in its deputation at all times throughout the exemption; and 
• that Council authorizes and directs staff to revoke the exemption or place further conditions on the exemption at any time, should the off-site noise impacts exceed 45 dBA (decibels A-weighted) at any sensitive receptor points.

Meetings of the Council of the Town of Greater Napanee can be viewed virtually (or watched afterward) on the Napanee Town Council YouTube channel. Further information about Council meetings, including agendas and reports, is available on the Town’s CivicWeb portal.