CCA R&D PARTNERSHIPS AND PROJECTS
Building Efficiency Optimization (BEO) Project
In June 2017, MCE, supported by TerraVerde, the Center for Climate Protection and others, was awarded a $1.7 Million California Energy Commission Local Government Innovation grant to “develop, deploy, and disseminate a solution that leverages distributed energy resources (DERs) as a targeted procurement resource, to optimize building efficiency and the deployment of DERs on a community-wide scale.” Under this grant, TerraVerde is developing tools that enable CCAs to identify the best locations for incentivizing customers to implement solar, energy storage and other distributed energy resources. The initial analysis is focusing specifically on batteries paired with existing solar PV systems under NEM. Specifically, the aim of the analysis is to reduce the annual true up cash payout to customers with solar PV systems that are net generators. As part of the Building Energy Optimization (BEO) program, we are developing a program manual which will include marketing and procurement practices for how a CCA would deploy a high volume of customer-sited DERs.
Solar Energy Innovation Network (SEIN) Project
TerraVerde was also awarded a research grant in 2018 by the National Renewable Energy Lab to work with Peninsula Clean Energy and Lancaster Choice Energy to develop an advanced rate design tool to help CCAs and other load serving entities incentivize the deployment of solar and other distributed energy resources. Initial results of our analysis of CCA’s wholesale procurement costs show that meaningful Day Ahead, Real-time and Resource Adequacy costs can be reduced through deployment of energy storage paired with solar aggregated within a virtual power plant. TerraVerde analysts are using this data in “virtual pilots” to identify specific tariff policies and/or rate designs that will incentivize customer adoption.
Advanced Energy Community (AEC) Project
TerraVerde is also part of a team that was recently awarded a contract by the CEC to implement “Advanced Energy Community” strategies in partnership with the City of Lancaster and Lancaster Choice Energy. Our role involves adding energy storage to existing public agency sites with solar (e.g., Lancaster School District: 1.2 MW storage at 10 sites, including Microgrids at 3 sites) and developing contractual agreements to allow for multi-use applications (MUA) of the storage assets, including participation of the storage assets in LCE’s VPP. Separately, Lancaster Choice Energy has entered into a contract with TerraVerde to assist in the development of a broad based DER Analytics and Development Program that engages customers to participate in the VPP.