The State University of Campinas in Brazil, commonly known as Unicamp, recently inaugurated an autonomous energy microgrid that will save the university roughly $75,000 (R$450,000) in annual energy costs, according to the developers.
Unicamp, one of Brazil’s preeminent public research universities, is located about 65 miles north of São Paulo.
Dubbed CampusGrid, the microgrid includes a 565 kW photovoltaic (PV) system, a 1 MW/1.27 MWh high capacity battery energy storage system (BESS) and a 250 kilovolt-amperes (kVa) natural gas backup generator.
The PV system includes rooftop solar panels on several campus buildings, a solar kiosk and a charging station for the university’s electric shuttle buses. Control equipment for the microgrid is housed in the same parking lot as the shuttle bus charger.
In case of a grid outage or blackout, the system will provide up to 2 hours of emergency power to two libraries, a multipurpose gym and the School of Physical Education on the public research university’s Barão Geraldo campus.
“This pilot project is important for us to face challenges and to train professionals who can contribute to the microgrid market in Latin America,” professor Luiz Carlos Pereira da Silva, coordinator of the Microgrid Project and the Sustainable Campus Office at Unicamp, said at the inauguration event. “No university in Latin America has a structure like this.”
International partnerships
The university developed the microgrid in partnership with several Brazilian and Chinese universities and research institutions, as well as CPFL Energia, the Brazilian electric utility.
Eletra Energy, a Brazilian energy equipment and solutions provider, and Hexing, a Chinese smart grid solutions company, were also involved in the development and construction of the microgrid.
“We are confident that this project will be an important guide for the development of the sector,” said Chunshan Cao, sales director at Hexing.
Regulatory agency funds 3 microgrids
Funding for CampusGrid, as well as an experimental laboratory-scale microgrid and a residential microgrid located in a nearby condominium complex, was provided by the research and development arm of the National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel), the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency.
Aneel provided approximately $7.54 million (R$45.3 million) for the three microgrids through its Microgrids for Efficient, Reliable and Greener Energy (MERGE) initiative.
Colleges and universities across the globe are leveraging microgrids
Colleges and universities around the world are turning to microgrids to reduce energy costs and provide reliable power. In the U.S., the University of California at Irvine is using its 20 MW microgrid to power several campus buildings and a fleet of electric buses and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is studying the use of small modular nuclear reactors in microgrids.
In Nigeria, the government recently announced it would be electrifying 15 universities and teaching hospitals with hybrid solar minigrids. Minigrids, sometimes referred to as remote microgrids, are typically used in remote areas that do not have access to a central grid.
