Integrated Community-Level Solutions for Resource Management for a Grid and Customer Benefits
Integrated solar and storage to advance zero net energy at the community scale.
Electric Power Research Institute, Inc.
Recipient
Palo Alto, CA
Recipient Location
13th
Senate District
23rd
Assembly District
$2,952,356
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
EPRI completed the installation and configuration of the DC Minigrid which includes HVAC and lighting equipment and associated controls. The final report was submitted in March 2022.
The Issue
California seeks to make energy innovations serve all of society so that everyone can derive the economic and quality of life benefits from a clean energy future. Many technical research gaps need to be addressed to help realize this goal, including the following: (1) assessing new, high-efficiency solar technologies that can address space constraints in commercial and multifamily buildings, (2) testing how integration of solar, energy storage, and connected end-use load control can help manage customer needs with electrical grid benefits and (3) evaluating approaches to enable community solar and storage as a tool to enable grid reliability.
Project Innovation
This project demonstrates the feasibility of using an integrated community-scale solar plus storage system, sited at a low-income multi-family disadvantaged community in Willowbrook, CA. The technology solution balances a combination of grid-connected distributed energy resources (DERs), including advanced solar PV, energy storage, smart inverter, and load management. The project team is working with Southern California Edison to study the distribution grid impacts that the DERs can mitigate, realizing cost savings and enabling increased PV penetration. It is also investigating innovative business strategies to maximize the value of DERs to both end-users and the utility. Another objective of the project is to demonstrate a cost-effective solution to achieving Zero Net Energy (ZNE) within an affordable housing community to realize California's 2020 goal for new sustainable and scalable ZNE communities.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
The project includes high efficiency bifacial 355 W solar modules manufactured by Canadian Solar that can substantially assist commercial and multifamily buildings with roof area constraints, as well as the integration of solar and storage with smart inverters that include segmentation of storage for meeting multiple needs. The project also demonstrates a platform that can manage both loads and storage while integrating DC mini grids to eliminate conversion losses for solar PV.
Affordability
The project will demonstrate energy savings of 231,240 kWh to the grid on an annual basis from the solar generation and additional 10% savings through reduction in conversion losses.
Environmental Sustainability
The project shows a potential, if replicated to cover 15% of California residential energy use, for energy use reduction of 1089 GWh per year, which translates to statewide CO2 reduction of 397,631 tons per year.
Key Project Members
Agatha Kazdan
Subrecipients
LINC Housing Corporation
Gridscape Solutions, Inc.
OhmConnect, Inc.
Staten Solar Corporation
Match Partners
Electric Power Research Institute, Inc.
LINC Housing Corporation
Gridscape Solutions, Inc.
OhmConnect, Inc.
Staten Solar Corporation
EPRI International, Inc.
