Mt. Hood City Corridor is a group gathering place within the Higher Hood River Valley that acts as a recycling middle, group meals distribution hub, middle-school classroom, and a venue for particular public occasions. Initially in-built 1914 and owned by Hood River County, the power is a registered Historic Constructing. Previously it has acted as a reduction middle throughout emergencies and has supported public well being actions. Since 1988, the Mount Hood Towne Corridor Affiliation, via a long-term lease with the county, has restored the constructing and continues to function it as the world’s group middle.
On account of its geography, Hood River County faces distinctive challenges to the resilience of its power assets and infrastructure. Elements together with wildfires, ice storms, earthquakes, excessive temperatures, and excessive winds are all potential causes of energy outages for native residents and companies. A lot consideration has been drawn to this by the 2018 Hood River County Vitality Plan which recognized power resilience as a high precedence. The Hood River County Vitality Council (HRCEC), tasked with implementing the Hood River County Vitality Plan, labored with the Hood River County Workplace of Emergency Administration to establish Mt. Hood City Corridor as a important facility that’s ideally configured and positioned to function a resilience hub for the Higher Hood River Valley.
Quick ahead to September 2023. With a particular website in thoughts and a listing of resiliency targets in hand, Hood River County obtained a grant from the Oregon Division of Vitality’s Neighborhood Renewable Vitality Grant Program to completely fund a microgrid feasibility examine for the proposed undertaking.
Enter: Mayfield Renewables. Our staff carried out a load examine, constructed resilience and monetary fashions, assisted in tools choice, and delivered a complete feasibility examine report and 30% preliminary plan set. Mayfield additionally shared its feasibility examine findings at a public remark occasion organized by the undertaking companions, adjusting the preliminary report primarily based on suggestions from the 40-50 group members in attendance.
Mission Targets
The Hood River County Vitality Council approached Mayfield Renewables after receiving feasibility examine grant funding in January of 2024. The feasibility examine targeted on the Mt. Hood City Corridor constructing and the encircling plot of land.
The group initially hoped the microgrid would offer two weeks of backup energy, with a 50% confidence interval; nevertheless, when the undertaking staff determined to not embrace a fossil-powered generator within the design, the resilience capabilities have been reexamined. Mayfield was tasked with providing a number of particular visions of what was doable, then working with undertaking companions and incorporating suggestions from the area people to determine the most effective path ahead.
Extra particularly, Mayfield produced a number of design choices and modeled resilience efficiency for various load eventualities primarily based on consumer load choice priorities. Feasibility research generally entail studying and energetic participation, and thru that course of, we clarified technical, useful, and aesthetic constraints.
Mission Hurdles
Mayfield’s feasibility research are iterative by necessity. Microgrid methods are advanced. Our course of is designed to establish beforehand unknown constraints, then we work with the consumer to discover a workable resolution.
The Mt. Hood City Corridor microgrid feasibility examine supplied a number of examples of identified and unknown constraints, which have been evaluated with enter from the Hood River County Vitality Council, the Mount Hood Towne Corridor Affiliation Board of Administrators, and group members to make sure the top end result happy all events.
Grant Funding
The feasibility examine was totally funded by an Oregon Division of Vitality grant. HRCEC supposed to make use of the feasibility examine to use for a development grant of as much as $1 million, which acted as a agency price range constraint.
Mayfield designed the whole microgrid system round a $1 million price range for procurement and development. The price range cap impacted selections associated to tools choice, system measurement, system performance, and aesthetics.
Load Choice
Load choice is a typical hurdle within the improvement of microgrid methods when solely a portion of masses will be backed up. On this case, on account of huge seasonal variability in photo voltaic manufacturing, it was nearly unattainable to supply two weeks of full backup energy in the course of winter with solely PV and battery assets. Mayfield facilitated load choice with the undertaking staff.
Throughout preliminary evaluation, Mayfield modeled 4 load eventualities starting from most inclusive (33 masses) to least (18 masses), and generated an artificial load profile representing assumed electrical consumption patterns throughout every “state of affairs. The data was delivered within the dispatch chart proven above. The consumer finally chosen the load state of affairs that they felt supplied the optimum steadiness between facility operation and resilience efficiency throughout a grid outage.
Inadequate Load Information
A part of the load modeling course of described above consists of acquiring correct load information. Excessive-priority backup masses have been distributed throughout a number of electrical panels. As a common finest observe, Mayfield strongly recommends utilizing interval information fairly than consultant load profiles.
Mayfield carried out a load examine by putting in a metering machine to gather interval information from one electrical load panel within the facility that contained a lot of the masses the City Corridor needed to again up, together with a serious heating unit. As luck would have it, the load examine befell throughout a winter storm, which was one state of affairs the microgrid can be designed to deal with.
Historic Constructing Designation
Constructed over a century in the past, the Mt. Hood City Corridor is a registered Historic Constructing which places it in a distinct (and much stricter) allowing class that goals to retain the constructing’s historic appeal. That meant Mayfield couldn’t default to maximizing the accessible roof area for a PV array. As an alternative, the whole system needed to be designed to steadiness performance and aesthetics.
Mayfield gathered website info from the Mount Hood Towne Corridor Affiliation (MHTHA) and performed an in-person website go to to establish appropriate places for brand new microgrid tools. Completely different PV cover choices (for instance, a custom-built wood-framed photo voltaic cover vs. pre-engineered metal purlins) have been evaluated with MHTHA and the native AHJ to choose an eye-pleasing but permit-able design.
Outcomes
All the feasibility examine took about 4 months to finish. Mayfield’s deliverables included a feasibility report with a system description, modeling inputs and assumptions, tools specs, and different necessary undertaking particulars together with a 30% preliminary plan set.
Hood River County submitted the report and plan set as a part of their development grant utility, which was later authorised for the utmost quantity of $967,000. Grant distributors are typically danger averse. Mt. Hood City Corridor undertaking companions credit score the knowledge obtained from the thorough feasibility examine report as one of many causes for successful the aggressive grant. As of this writing, development is anticipated to start within the fall of 2025.
Mayfield Renewables is an engineering consultancy specializing in business and industrial PV and microgrid engineering. Contact us immediately for a session.
