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Silent Power to supply California solar project

Renewable technology company Silent Power will supply the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) with distributed energy storage technology to aid in completing the utility’s photovoltaic (PV) storage pilot at Anatolia.

The utility’s $5.9-million pilot project will evaluate how the integration of energy storage enhances the value of distributed PV resources for the community, the utility and the grid by reducing peak loads, firming intermittent renewable capacity and maximizing overall system efficiency. Silent Power’s OnDemand Home Energy Appliance is a distributed energy storage device that will store excess energy generated by a homeowner’s solar power system. When energy is needed during super- peak demand times (4 p.m. – 7 p.m.), SMUD and their customers can draw upon this stored energy from the OnDemand system.

“The pilot project further demonstrates SMUD’s industry leadership in integrating renewable technologies that maximize the grid’s clean energy and reliability for our customers,” said Mark Rawson, SMUD senior project manager. “As part of our efforts to more broadly deploy smart grid technologies that enable easier integration of renewables, storage could be a valuable asset for SMUD and its customers. This pilot helps us understand the technical and economic feasibility of these types of storage technologies.”

Silent Power’s OnDemand system will be placed in 15 homes in the Rancho Cordova, CA community. The pilot project will allow monitoring of PV systems, along with energy storage, to give SMUD a better assessment of the value of distributed energy resources from a utility standpoint. SMUD will be able to determine how well the storage systems can support its super-peak consumption times when output from the PV systems drops significantly. Based on these outcomes, the utility may replicate the technology throughout its service territory should it prove feasible.

For more information on the SMUD smart grid pilot project, visit www.smud.org.

June 17, 2010  By  John Gilson