Santa Barbara, California Seeks Bids for at Least Six School Microgrids, Solar and Storage

The Santa Barbara Unified School District has issued a request for proposals for at least six school microgrids as part of a solar and resiliency project that encompasses 15 locations.

The solicitation comes as schools and other California institutions and businesses seek ways to ensure electric reliability following last year’s power outages enacted by utilities to prevent wildfires.

In addition to adding energy resiliency, the project is expected to lower the district’s electricity costs, reduce its carbon footprint, and add shade to campuses.

The school district seeks one firm to finance, design, permit, build, commission, own and operate, and maintain the energy infrastructure under a 25-year power purchase agreement. 

The design calls for microgrids with battery storage at six or more sites, as well as solar photovoltaics at 15 sites and PV-paired with battery energy. The project is expected to include about 4.5 MW of solar capacity and 3 MW/6 MWH of battery energy storage (if all of the sites install storage). 

The sites include three high schools, four junior high schools, six elementary schools, a district office and a warehouse. The school microgrids, which would offer variable two to six hour islanding mode, are proposed for the high schools, one junior high and the warehouse.

The Clean Coalition, a California non-profit, partnered with Sage Energy Consulting on the RFP. The partners conducted the project feasibility analyses and design and solicitation execution and will work together on the selection of a developer to build, own, and operate the school microgrids.

A model for solar microgrids

In an interview with Microgrid Knowledge, Craig Lewis, executive director of the Clean Coalition, described the RFP as a possible model for others undertaking solar microgrids. 

“I think it’s going to be a game changer for the industry in terms of general understanding of how solar microgrids need to be configured in order to provide the type of resilience that we need them to provide…and in terms of how to convey that to the marketplace,” Lewis said.

Among the innovations that the Clean Coalition is attempting to bring to the market within the RFP is what it calls VOR123. The system establishes a value of resilience (VOR) — what power outages cost a facility — by way of load ranking. It’s meant to address a frequent lament within the industry that valuing resilience must be done project-by-project, in a customized way — which adds time and cost.

“Every time you went into a new facility, it was like giving birth or putting a man on the moon,” Lewis said.

Pioneered by the Clean Coalition, VOR123 brings standardization to the process. 

The approach ranks load, based on its importance. (See graphic below.) The most critical load — life sustaining and mission critical functions — go into Tier 1, which generally represents 10% of load. The building cannot lose these capabilities.

Tier 2, which usually accounts for 15% of the load, contains appliances, equipment and operations that are a priority, but not critical. 

“You’ll keep them on as long as you can without limiting the ability to keep your Tier 1 on,” Lewis said. “And then the Tier 3 loads are everything else.”

So freezers and refrigerators might be within a school’s Tier 1, communications equipment within Tier 2, and lights in Tier 3.

Each of the three tiers has a monetary value assigned.

“Nobody is going to pay more to keep the Tier 3 loads on than they would normally pay for electricity. But they are willing to pay a premium for Tier 1. They’re willing to pay a premium for Tier 2 as well,” he said.