Renewable Energy Projects Require Engaged Partners
Spotlight: THG’s Impact on Energy Storage Programs
This month, Bay Area community choice electricity provider MCE announced one of the first implementations of non-residential customer battery storage through their Energy Storage Program. The program provides further financial incentives for MCE customers who can leverage on-site solar to charge storage, and strategically discharge due to local grid and market conditions. THG was the trade ally sponsor of the project and worked alongside project developer Enerlogics West to enable the customer to participate in MCE’s program.
The customer, West Marin Medical Center, is a family health clinic in Point Reyes. During the pandemic, the site has served as a location for vaccines and boosters for the community. In recent years, the facility has also been subject to PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) events, which created issues for their refrigerated inventory of vaccines and medical supplies. Through MCE’s Energy Storage Program, they were able to claim additional incentives to implement an energy storage system that is powered by their existing solar array. It can also power their refrigeration assets through an outage. In the case of an extended outage, the storage provides the necessary lead time for the staff to transfer inventory to another location if necessary. On days when there are no PSPS events, the storage will go through strategic charging and discharging periods in response to local grid and market conditions.
“This project is representative of how advanced energy projects can be bundled and incentivized to benefit both the customer and electricity market participants” says Max Frey, THG’s VP of Business Development. “We see this type of program structure growing as an effective avenue for renewable and distributed energy investment.”
In 2021, THG was awarded a Trade Ally role in the program to leverage its Automated Demand Response (ADR) system to align communication and control across various energy storage solutions with MCE’s distributed energy resource management system (DERMS). As the program evolves and the footprint of projects expands, these energy storage resources will be able to provide increased benefits to the local grid, in addition to a broader set of economic benefits to MCE as a supplier of electricity.
THG Energy is proud to be involved in this program with MCE, and we look forward to continuing to bring value to MCE customers, member communities, and MCE as a market participant.
Read more about the Marin Medical Center and MCE’s other projects and initiatives here: