Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Sacramento’s Path to Battery-Backed Solar Homes
Sacramento’s Path to Battery-Backed Solar Homes
Turning customer-owned PV and energy storage into grid assets
Jeff St. John
October 16, 2013
While some California utilities have been in the news lately for blocking homeowners from backing up their rooftop solar panels with batteries (we’re looking at you, Southern California Edison), another is working on solar-storage combinations that help the grid and residents alike -- even if it takes a couple of trips around the block to make it work right.
The utility in question is Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), the publicly-owned power provider that’s rolling out a wide array of smart grid technologies and tech-enabled services to its 600,000 customers, helped along by the $127.5 million Department of Energy smart grid grant it won in 2009.
The solar-storage project is the 2500 R Midtown housing development, where 34 homes have been outfitted with solar panels and a combined lithium-ion battery pack, inverter and power control system, all contained in a closet-sized box built by Stockton, Calif.-based startup Sunverge Energy.
Patrick McCoy, SMUD’s solar program planner, described the project’s goals as not just to test whether the technology works, but also to see how it can support the peak-shaving, grid-balancing and customer energy-saving concepts that SMUD and the DOE have in mind.
“We’re thinking, 'Is there a way to capitalize customer capex, having to do with PV and batteries?'” he said ...
Turning customer-owned PV and energy storage into grid assets
Jeff St. John
October 16, 2013
While some California utilities have been in the news lately for blocking homeowners from backing up their rooftop solar panels with batteries (we’re looking at you, Southern California Edison), another is working on solar-storage combinations that help the grid and residents alike -- even if it takes a couple of trips around the block to make it work right.
The utility in question is Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), the publicly-owned power provider that’s rolling out a wide array of smart grid technologies and tech-enabled services to its 600,000 customers, helped along by the $127.5 million Department of Energy smart grid grant it won in 2009.
The solar-storage project is the 2500 R Midtown housing development, where 34 homes have been outfitted with solar panels and a combined lithium-ion battery pack, inverter and power control system, all contained in a closet-sized box built by Stockton, Calif.-based startup Sunverge Energy.
Patrick McCoy, SMUD’s solar program planner, described the project’s goals as not just to test whether the technology works, but also to see how it can support the peak-shaving, grid-balancing and customer energy-saving concepts that SMUD and the DOE have in mind.
“We’re thinking, 'Is there a way to capitalize customer capex, having to do with PV and batteries?'” he said ...
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/sacramentos-path-to-battery-backed-solar-homes?utm_source=Daily&utm_medium=Headline&utm_campaign=GTMDaily
