NES Person of the Year
2021
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By: The Editorial Team at NES
Annette Verschuren
Chair and Chief Executive Officer, NRStor
NRStor
Deploying Canada's First Commercial Grid-Scale Energy Storage Arrays
The Significance of Being Named NES Person of the Year
Being named NES Person of the Year is not a popularity contest. It is a recognition of consequence.
In a world where energy security, industrial competitiveness and the materials that power modern life have become inseparable, NES exists to identify the people who are actually shaping outcomes, not merely commenting on them. The Person of the Year is the individual whose decisions, leadership and results over the preceding twelve months have most clearly advanced the reliable supply of energy and strategic minerals, strengthened the businesses that produce them, or altered the geopolitical and capital-market landscape in which those industries operate.
Selection signals that this person has moved the needle: unlocking production, securing supply chains, allocating capital with discipline, navigating complex jurisdictions, or forcing a clearer public and policy understanding of what is at stake. It is awarded to those who operate at the intersection of geology, engineering, finance and statecraft, the domain NES was created to cover with seriousness and depth.
For the recipient, the acknowledgement carries weight precisely because it is earned inside an industry that measures itself by tonnes, megawatts, contracts and long-term returns rather than by volume of coverage. It places the individual in a permanent record of the people who mattered when the energy transition, the AI power demand surge, and the contest for critical minerals moved from aspiration to hard constraint.
In short, NES Person of the Year marks the leader whose work in the past year most clearly helped determine whether the world will have the energy and the materials it needs. That is the standard. That is the honour.
Why This Person, Why This Year
This year, Canada's energy-storage sector moved from demonstration projects toward true commercial scale. Annette Verschuren, through NRStor, advanced the Oneida Energy Storage Project—a 250 MW / 1,000 MWh battery facility developed in partnership with the Six Nations of the Grand River—and continued to operate and expand the pioneering grid-connected arrays that had already established the company as the country's first commercial mover.
For NES, this year's defining achievement is the practical deployment and scaling of commercial grid-scale energy storage in Canada, proving that storage can deliver measurable system cost savings, emissions reductions and Indigenous economic participation at utility scale.
For NES, this year's defining achievement is the practical deployment and scaling of commercial grid-scale energy storage in Canada, proving that storage can deliver measurable system cost savings, emissions reductions and Indigenous economic participation at utility scale.
By the end of the year, plans for one of the world's largest battery energy-storage facilities are firmly underway in southwestern Ontario. The Oneida project, a 250-megawatt, 1,000-megawatt-hour installation, has been publicly committed by NRStor and its Indigenous partner, the Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation. Independent analysis projected lifetime electricity-system cost savings of up to $760 million and greenhouse-gas reductions measured in millions of tonnes, achiving it without adding cost to ratepayers.
This was not an isolated announcement. It rested on nearly a decade of prior commercial deployments by the same company: Canada's first grid-connected commercial flywheel facility, the world's first commercial advanced compressed-air energy-storage plant, and a series of smaller systems that had already proven storage could provide real-time grid services. In a year when Canadian electricity systems faced rising pressure to integrate more variable renewables while maintaining reliability and affordability, Annette Verschuren's NRStor was converting storage from concept into operating and contracted infrastructure. The significance lay in the combination of technical firsts, commercial contracts and partnership models that others could replicate.
This was not an isolated announcement. It rested on nearly a decade of prior commercial deployments by the same company: Canada's first grid-connected commercial flywheel facility, the world's first commercial advanced compressed-air energy-storage plant, and a series of smaller systems that had already proven storage could provide real-time grid services. In a year when Canadian electricity systems faced rising pressure to integrate more variable renewables while maintaining reliability and affordability, Annette Verschuren's NRStor was converting storage from concept into operating and contracted infrastructure. The significance lay in the combination of technical firsts, commercial contracts and partnership models that others could replicate.
Annette Verschuren is NES Person of the Year for 2021 because she led the company that deployed and scaled Canada's first commercial grid-scale energy-storage arrays and then advanced the country's largest battery project to date. Through NRStor she demonstrated that storage could move beyond pilot status to contracted, revenue-generating assets serving the Independent Electricity System Operator and, with Oneida, to multi-hundred-megawatt scale with Indigenous equity participation.
For an international audience focused on energy, business and strategic minerals, the achievement matters because storage is the enabling technology that allows higher penetrations of wind and solar, reduces curtailment, and defers or avoids more expensive peaking generation. Verschuren's work showed that Canada could develop, finance and partner on these assets domestically rather than waiting for foreign models.
For an international audience focused on energy, business and strategic minerals, the achievement matters because storage is the enabling technology that allows higher penetrations of wind and solar, reduces curtailment, and defers or avoids more expensive peaking generation. Verschuren's work showed that Canada could develop, finance and partner on these assets domestically rather than waiting for foreign models.
Key Facts
Age
66
Current Title
Chair and Chief Executive Officer, NRStor Inc.
Company HQ
Toronto, Ontario
Signature Focus
Advancing Canada's first commercial grid-scale energy-storage arrays, including the 250 MW / 1,000 MWh Oneida battery project with Indigenous partners
