College participants from the SF Bay Area, Desert Region and Imperial Valley
On Thursday, January 12, a dozen community college faculty and administrative personnel from around the state were hosted to a tour of the Stone Edge Farm microgrid project in Sonoma, California. Craig Wooster, Project Manager, spent a substantial amount of time with attendees describing technical details of the project and answering questions on operational and economic details.
The core of the microgrid are 7 banks of solar panels, some supported by string inverters, others supported by microinverters. A Capstone gas turbine (equipped with a locally designed and built heat recovery unit) is available as back-up. Storage is provided by multiple technologies—including Sony, Tesla and other Lithium-Ion batteries; an ESS Iron Flow battery system; an Aquion Salt Water battery; and as hydrogen after being converted through an electrolyzer. Alternative flywheels are being evaluated as future storage additions.
Microgrid Powers Complete Vineyard Operation
Tour guide Ryan explaining details of the heat recovery addition to the Capstone turbine
The microgrid is more than adequate to power the complete vineyard operation, including residential and office buildings, vehicles (charged by both electricity and 6000 psi hydrogen) and irrigation equipment (e.g., pumps). As a result, the vineyard is discussing exporting stored energy and related generation efforts with CAISO as part of the latter’s efforts to integrate storage and microgrids into the broader California energy grid.
The idea for the tour was proposed to ATRE DSN Larry McLaughlin by Emmie Stenstedt of StoreMe Inc. (a company providing storage support services) following her participation as a reviewer of draft Energy Storage curriculum. Tour arrangements with faculty were coordinated by McLaughlin and Gerald Bernstein, Assistant ATRE DSN for the San Francisco Bay Area.
