Imergy Power Systems & Geli Awarded College Microgrid Project
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Advanced energy storage systems leader Imergy Power Systems and Growing Energy Labs Inc. (Geli) are collaborating on a microgrid project for Chabot-Las Positas Community College District in Livermore, California. Geli is a designer of energy storage and microgrid solutions. The joint project at Las Positas College will add renewable energy sources, reduce peak power, and allow the district to be more energy independent.
Imergy Power Systems’ EPS30 series institutional scale vanadium redox flow batteries will be installed as part of the microgrid. The total power and energy capacity of these batteries is 250 kilowatts/1 megawatt-hour. Geli’s Energy Operating System and Energy Management applications will be used to manage the microgrid.
Las Positas College in Livermore will be the site of the flow batteries installation, where there is already a 2.35 MW solar array that generates about 55% of the campus’s electricity. Over 3,000 tons of ice thermal storage is also operational, as well as ten Level II EV charging stations. It has been estimated that the new Imergy/Geli smart microgrid will save the district about $75,000 per year.
On its own, the Imergy/Geli microgrid has many merits, but it is actually larger in scope than just one installation at one campus. The project is part of the California Energy Commission’s $26.5 million Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) program which seeks to demonstrate how colleges and universities can use microgrids to better manage their energy and reduce costs.
In fact, a document called the Microgrid Blueprint will be published and shared with other educational institutions containing data so they can evaluate the benefits of installing and managing their own microgrids.
“Microgrids will become one of the primary ways consumers and businesses around the world get their electricity in the future. Solar, software and storage are making distributed energy possible in the same way that semiconductors, software applications and digital storage paved the way for distributed computing. With the right storage technology and software the management of microgrids is seamless, safe, and very easy for the customer to manage. Projects like this are setting a template for our industry,” explained Bill Watkins, CEO of Imergy Power Systems.
Annual revenues from microgrid-enabling technologies have been estimated by Navigant Research to exceed $26 billion by 2023.
Imergy battery systems can be integrated into a number of different situations. CleanTechnica has reported on its energy storage solutions being used at an almond farm in California and at a restaurant in the Slovenian Alps — just to name two.
Las Positas College has about 9,000–11,000 students and prepares them for the transition to 4-year educational institutions and new careers through classes, degree programs, and training programs.
Image Credit: Las Positas College
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