Microgrid benefits include:
- Uninterrupted power for critical facilities
- When powered by clean energy, they will lower emissions
- Can run independent of, or parallel to, the larger regional grid
In California, the San Diego Gas and Electric Utility has just been approved to build and own a handful of microgrids around the city of San Diego. The project stemmed from a State Emergency issued last summer, which outlines California’s energy needs in the face of growing climate challenges
This Microgrid equipment package included a 500 kW Inverter, battery energy storage system and a 500 kVA transformer. These form a 500 kW microgrid which is capable of providing temporary backup power to customer loads in the event of sustained power outage of the local distribution system. It can seamlessly transition the customer’s loads from grid-connected state to an islanded state and back again. The equipment has versatility of applications such as shaving peak demand, maintain power quality, voltage stability and mitigate harmonic distortion and voltage flicker. This equipment is very useful for industrial, utility as well as commercial establishments who have a 600V 3-Phase loads at their facility.
- It was integrated with 125kW solar generation, and provided power to essential loads of the building during the power outages.
- It was also used to charge the batteries in the night (during minimum load ) and use the charged batteries to supply peak load to operate as a “Peak Shaving” function to reduce extra electricity use charges and save on monthly bills.
- It had anti-islanding option with smooth transition to islanding and grid in case of the need.
- It was used to control the power quality and balance the load.
- It was also tested for step-wise load shedding of the building during the outage so as to supply power to the essential load until the power from the grid restored back.
- It was tested for its full operating cycle of the SOC on batteries for their upper and lower limits so as to utilize the charge on the batteries for load and simultaneously keeping the batteries from draining to zero charge.
