Electrical Utility Company provides grid support and electrical resiliency to customers with dual-purpose microgrids

CLIENT NEED

This electrical utility company was interested in providing an optional resiliency service to their customers that had an increased need for reliable power.

The utility wanted a solution that could support both the grid and their customers.

PROJECT OVERVIEW:

Portfolio size: 46.4 MW
Current COD (MW): 7.2 MW
Under construction (MW): 39.2MW

LOOKING AHEAD:

As regulatory approvals are granted, this utility client plans to install 300MW of distributed generation across 5 service territories.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

• In 2019, this client selected Enchanted Rock as a strategic partner for their Power Through program. With this partnership, Enchanted Rock provides the utility with a new tool that allows specific utility customers to pay for their higher-level resiliency service without socialization of these costs to all other customers.
• Under the Power Through program, Enchanted Rock designs, builds, and operates the microgrid and the client maintains ownership of the systems.
• The client dispatches the assets through Enchanted Rock’s NOC, simplifying the integration to their own system control room.
• In August 2020, Hurricane Marco destroyed the utility’s transmission lines in Louisiana that connected. The Woodlands, Texas to the client’s grid. The result was a transmission emergency, and Enchanted Rock’s HEB system in the Woodlands was able to provide local grid reliability for 68 hours during Hurricane Marco and into Hurricane Laura that came just three days later. The site ran for 20 hours straight.