Best Practices in Addressing Energy Supply Through Solar ......July 10, 2019 Eric Veium, CEM CEP Energy & Sustainability Analyst Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Best Practices in Addressing

Presented to the California Higher Education Sustainability ConferenceJuly 10, 2019

Eric Veium, CEM CEPEnergy & Sustainability Analyst

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Best Practices in Addressing Energy Supply Through Solar Power

Gold Tree Solar Farm – Innovatively Advancing the Academic Mission

FM&D Energy, Utilities & Sustainability

State of Renewables at Cal Poly SLO

Committed to Carbon Neutrality & Climate Resilience Cal Poly is a PG&E bundled service customer Transmission level service on E20T ~$0.125/kWh Non-export service agreement Campus Core Solar PV 2006 CSU/DGS Solar Phase I – 135 kW rooftop No projects from CSU Solar Phase II or III Several 2 to 5 kW rooftop systems Under contract for 582 kW rooftop new solar Challenges: Non-export/telemetry

FM&D Energy, Utilities & SustainabilitySolar Farm Layout


Project Results

REC Solar selected as partner PPA Price Structure: $0.0605/kWh for 20 years 11,300,000 kWh/year – 25% of campus needs Savings NPV of $17.1M ($26.8M total) Successful partnership with Ag and Facilities

1st year update 10,150,000 kWh generated $1.8 million Savings Successful CPUC GRC Settlement Negotiations STARS Gold (expected)


• Solar Farm as an Academic Asset– Academic Services Agreement with REC Solar

• Detailed data and dashboard with API access• Internships• Project documentation, lectures and tours

– Funding• Academic & Faculty Partnerships

– Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)– Reoccurring Funding $5k to $10k for up to five years

Learn by Doing – Campus as a Living Lab


Solar Farm Research

• Vegetation Management

• Design for Active Grazing

• Soiling• Machine Learning


Solar Laboratory

Multiple small PV arrays Fixed & adj tilt/orientation Fully instrumented Integrating with EE microgrid

from 2016 CALL grant Course development


Cleantech Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Student-led venture capital firm Climate Changers Fund Supporting a Campus Culture of

Innovation & Entrepreneurship Growing Regional Cleantech

Ecosystem


Central Coast Climate Collaborative (4C)

6 Counties with 6 Universities: local & regional government, business, agriculture, community groups, and academia across the Central Coast

Develop resources to connect university faculty, staff, students to regional needs for research such as sea level rise, public policy, agriculture, and many more

COLLABORATING TO ACHIEVE A LOW-CARBON, RESILIENT CENTRAL COAST


Sustainability Curriculum Infusion

Sustainability Course Quick-Qualify (SCQQ) Workshops

Sustainability Course Redesign Summer (SCRS) Workshop

Faculty Sponsorship to attend the National Consortium of Environmental Rhetoric and Writing

Center for Teaching, Learning, & Technology (CTLT)


What’s Next - On-campus Recycled Water Facility

Circular resource use Partnership between

Ag and Urban Infrastructure Renewal Significant Academic

Opportunities


• Another RES-BCT/NEMA Solar Farm• Sustainability-focused Advancement Officer• Campus Microgrid with intertie to Solar Farm

Other Opportunities


• Ask how infrastructure projects can be used to advance academic mission

• Engage academic partners early• Work with campus planners and procurement officers• Reach out to campus Advancement staff• Ask for what you want, challenge vendors to get creative, Think BIGGER

Immediate Action• Ask the CHESC Exhibitors about academic partnerships beyond

standard procurement transactions.

Key Takeaways


Thank You

Dennis Elliot [email protected] (805) 756-2090Eric Veium [email protected] (805) 756-5163

www.sustainability.calpoly.edu

Questions?

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.sustainability.calpoly.edu/


Additional Information


RES-BCT Program Structure

RenewableEnergySelf-generationBillCreditTransfer

Production viaTOU Generating Account

Bill Credit toTOU Benefitting Account

$

$ PPA

Up to 5MWRenewable

Energy System

Utility Campus


RES-BCT Program Eligibility

Created by AB 2466 in 2009, available to “local government”:

Cities, counties, special districts, or political subdivisions School districts Other local public agencies Some JPA’s UC, CSU, CCC’s (AB 1031) DA customers and CCA’s not eligible


RES-BCT Program Requirements

Max 5 MW total system size, must be RPS eligible Annual energy generation cannot exceed usage at generating account

and benefitting account combined Credit to benefitting account cannot exceed generation portion of bill Credit based on generation component of generation tariff only Generating account can be NEM or RESBCT, not both Benefitting account cannot be NEM Both accounts must be TOU CSI and SGIP incentives only apply to load at generation site Customer owns REC’s (if stated in PPA) Standby and PCIA charges will apply 105 MW cap in PG&E territory (250 total), 49 used in PG&E


Project Process

Site evaluation, selection, campus and BOT approvals Contract document development – RFQ/RFP, SLPPA CEQA Solicitation, proposal evaluation, negotiation, award Interconnection Design and peer reviews Permitting Construction, inspection, Cx PG&E final inspection/approval Commercial operation


Site Selection

Needed about 20 acres for a 5 MW system Climate Commitment finally opened door to land use conversation RES-BCT: Site must be owned or “under control” of local agency,

within same city/county/jurisdiction Connection to PG&E 12 kV distribution preferred Lower interconnection costs than 70 or 115 kV Avoids NEM cap and campus infrastructure limitations Campus export would require $1.5M ground grid at substation

Used PG&E PV RAM map to assess PG&E T&D capacities to accept renewable generation

FM&D Energy, Utilities & SustainabilitySite Evaluation


Site Selection

Selected Site – Cal Poly Sheep Unit No buildings in Master Plan Not prime ag land Close to PG&E substation Access to 12 kV distribution Good orientation Manageable slope/terrain 18.5 buildable acres


Pre-Bid Strategies

Performed CEQA in parallel with RFQ/RFP development Studied cultural/biological resources and visual impacts - $38K Resulted in Mitigated Negative Declaration Clarified mitigation measures for bidders, i.e. setbacks, vegetative screening

Specified single axis tracking About 30% more kWh/acre from a constrained site What direction do you point a fixed array? Max kWh = South, max $$$ = ? Flatter generation curve provides future TOU hedge Required space and rights to add future battery storage

Initiated interconnection process early Reserved place in line for capacity at substation – neighboring agency also developing PV Pre-application feedback informed 4.5 MW system size to minimize PG&E upgrade costs Required a “straw man” design for initial app - $10K

Created NPV calculator for “apples to apples” comparison, with fixed bidder inputs 19 year, 11 month PPA – delegated authority to campuses for execution A6 TOU generation tariff, utility escalation rate, and discount rate were givens Expected Energy Production table – avg kWh for each hour of each month Guaranteed Energy Production Factor (% of Expected – min 80%) Year 1 PPA price and annual escalator (max 2%) Module annual degradation factor


Academic Component of RFP

To facilitate collaboration on curriculum and applied research: Identified 48 applicable courses in the catalog across 15 departments Identified 5 applicable research Centers/Institutes Identified 15 related student clubs Required Vegetation Management Plan

Facilitate continued sheep unit grazing Research on solar farm rangeland mgt Digital archive of planning/design docs

Transparency of O&M practices and costs Student internships during design/const Support for tours


Solar Farm as an Academic Asset

Comprehensive metering, 5 min data collection, dashboard: Voltage, current, kW, kWh, PF of system and each inverter Power quality/harmonics on AC side of inverters Module temp, ambient temp and relative humidity Wind speed and direction Solar irradiance (global/horizontal/background) Tracker position Hemispherical sky camera to study cloud effects Hosting of data for future solar systems


Award Criteria

Combined RFQ/RFP Qualified top 5 proposals based on: Company history and project experience Project team qualifications and project experience Financials Response to academic component

Opened price proposals from top 5 Award based on highest NPV


Lessons Learned

Perform geotech prior to RFP – driver of construction method/cost Evaluate topo more carefully for sloped sites – max 10% for trackers Require fixed price for duration of PPA

Provides budget consistency and hedge against rate changes Perform sensitivity analysis of major inputs/assumptions Involve more stakeholders earlier 80% GEP (from CSU Phase III docs) is way too low – specify 95% RES-BCT is not considered departing load, doesn’t qualify for UC/CSU

exemption from non-bypassable charges (PCIA, departing load) Could have been even more ambitious in academic applications!

Documents

Best Practices in Addressing Energy Supply Through Solar ......July 10, 2019 Eric Veium, CEM CEP Energy & Sustainability Analyst Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Best Practices in Addressing