Lancaster Advanced Energy Community (AEC) Project
Zero Net Energy (ZNE) Alliance
Recipient
Davis, CA
Recipient Location
3rd
Senate District
4th
Assembly District
$2,805,873
Amount Spent
Active
Project Status
Project Update
In 2023, the Lancaster AEC project achieved several milestones. The project team completed the initial development of the Virtual Power Plant (VPP) and began integrating it with scheduling coordination functions. They also finalized load analysis and sizing of the energy assets and partnered with the City of Lancaster, Lancaster Energy, and Participate Energy to secure project finance. The team identified up to $9 million in project finance to fully develop the microgrid sites, which are expected to provide 1.3 MW of solar and 3.4 MWh of storage. Additionally, the VPP Tariff was approved by Lancaster Energy and the Lancaster City Council, allowing residents to receive a flat-rate bill credit for integrating their DER assets into the VPP. However, the project also faced challenges. One challenge was the shift from a master-metered microgrid to a nanogrid network approach at the HNR-1 site due to current CPUC regulations. Another challenge was the delay in construction at the HNR-1 site, which led to the project site for the affordable residential microgrid being shifted to the Arbor project in downtown Lancaster. These challenges required adjustments in the project plans and timelines.
The Issue
Local governments and cities will play a large part in reaching California's ambitious renewable energy goals. However, as cities move their energy mix to more renewable energy, they face new challenges. 100 percent renewables requires intelligent resource management to help balance the grid. There is a need for new public-private partnerships and business models that enable cost-effective implementation of zero net energy buildings, community-scale solar and storage, and other distributed energy resources. Finally, intensifying climate impacts have underscored the need to increase local resilience to grid outages by accelerating deployment of renewable microgrids.
Project Innovation
This project will deploy energy storage and microgrids at sites throughout Lancaster and integrate these DERs into a first-of-its-kind Virtual Power Plant (VPP). The project will demonstrate the power of local renewables, storage, and flexible load to balance the local grid, mitigate the duck curve, and provide valuable new grid services. These shovel-ready projects include two master-metered, ZNE affordable housing developments that island as microgrids. Renewable microgrids will be deployed at three Lancaster city schools, allowing these schools to provide critical services and act as shelters in an emergency. In addition, 3 MWh of energy storage will be deployed at commercial sites throughout Lancaster via the Lancaster Green District program, which will demonstrate an innovative public-private partnership model. All of these resources will be integrated into the Lancaster VPP, which will enable optimized performance of 5 MW of solar PV and 10 MWh of energy storage. The Lancaster VPP will demonstrate how local load-serving entities can help mitigate the problem of solar over-generation and intermittency with economic DER solutions.
Project Benefits
This project will support the development and commercialization of technological advancements and breakthroughs that overcome barriers to the achievement of the State of California's statutory energy goals by demonstrating a virtual power plant that can optimize the value and improve the economic attractiveness of distributed energy resources. In addition, the project will act as a demonstration for promising technical solutions that will lower costs and provide superior operational value, including a side-by-side demonstration of flywheel and lithium-ion storage systems, as well as several deployments of modular microgrids.

Affordability
These developments will utilize an innovative stationary storage business model that minimizes up-front capital costs through a shared savings model.

Reliability
As Lancaster increases its reliance on distributed solar PV as a base load resource, the battery storage deployments and integration with the VPP will increase grid reliability and substantially mitigate reliability issues.

Safety
Lancaster is located directly over the San Andreas fault at the end of a long feeder line, which creates exceptional risk of long-term outages in the event of an earthquake, fire, or other emergency.
Key Project Members

Richard Schorske
Subrecipients

Energy Solutions International

Olivine, Inc.

Gridscape Solutions, Inc.

TRC Engineers, Inc.

Blue Strike Environmental, Inc.

TerraVerde Energy LLC

Match Partners

City of Lancaster

Amber Kinetics, Inc.

Gridscape Solutions, Inc.

Blue Strike Environmental, Inc.

Lancaster School District
