Southern California municipal utility will integrate Ice Energy’s
Ice Bear distributed energy storage technology to complement smart grid
strategy
GLENDALE, CA – March 16, 2010 –
Ice Energy, a leading provider of advanced energy storage solutions to
the electric utility industry, today announced plans with municipal
utility Glendale Water & Power (GWP) to install 1.5 Megawatts (MW)
of energy storage on Glendale city buildings and local businesses under a
$4.25 million program.
The project in Glendale marks
the initial rollout of Ice Energy’s groundbreaking thermal energy
storage project with members of the Southern California Public Power
Authority (SCPPA). The large-scale 53 MW project, to be implemented by
participating municipal utilities throughout Southern California, will
reduce peak electrical demand by shifting as many as 64 Gigawatt hours
of electrical consumption from peak to off-peak periods every year,
reducing exposure to costly peak power and improving the reliability of
the electrical grid.
The majority of the program in
Glendale is being underwritten through $20 million in federal stimulus
funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for GWP’s Smart Grid project,
which includes an advanced metering program for electricity, in
addition to energy storage, to help increase efficiency and reduce
energy consumption.
Storing cleaner, more efficient and
more abundant energy off peak, and delivering it on peak at the point of
consumption, Ice Energy’s Ice Bear system is the industry’s first
energy storage solution specifically developed for use on small to
mid-sized commercial buildings.
Under the initial phase
of the program, conventional air conditioning units on 28 Glendale city
facilities will be replaced with new, higher-efficiency units and paired
with Ice Bear energy storage systems to create a hybrid cooling
solution that delivers a powerful change in how — and, more importantly,
when — energy is consumed for air conditioning. Air conditioning energy
demand – typically 40-50% of a building’s electricity use during peak
hours – will be reduced by as much as 95%.
In addition,
the program will fund the additional installation of similar systems for
more than 250 local businesses in the City of Glendale.
"Ice
Energy’s solution is a simple, cost-effective solution for managing
peak demand, and aligns perfectly with our Smart Grid initiatives -
enabling us to deliver reliable, competitively priced electric service
to our customers in a sustainable, environmentally-sensitive manner,”
said GWP General Manager Glenn Steiger. “The Ice Bear project is a key
step in achieving these goals for the benefit of all our customers and
the City of Glendale, and embodies all of the aspects we look for:
managing electrical consumption, improving efficiency, reducing our
environmental footprint, and lowering energy costs for our customers.”
“GWP is confident that our Smart Grid and storage initiative will serve
as a model for others to follow in California and across the nation,
while enabling Glendale to remain a leader in green energy and
environmental sustainability and helping our customers reduce their
energy bills,” Steiger added.
When aggregated and
deployed at scale, energy storage systems such as Ice Energy’s Ice Bear
represent a sustainable new energy solution equivalent to hundreds of
megawatts of clean peaking power for utilities, enabling them to deliver
reliable, competitively priced electric service to their customers in a
sustainable, environmentally-sensitive manner.
About Glendale Water & Power
Glendale Water & Power is the City of Glendale’s utility. Glendale
Water & Power provides water to 33,400 customers in Glendale,
California. The city-owned utility also generates, transmits and
distributes electricity to 84,500 residential, commercial and industrial
customers.
www.GlendaleWaterAndPower.com
ABOUT ICE ENERGY
Ice Energy delivers distributed energy storage and smart grid solutions
for transforming energy system efficiency and improving grid
reliability.
The company’s smart grid platform
integrates revolutionary distributed energy storage technology with an
advanced software infrastructure and intelligent two-way control to
provide utilities with a powerful, cost-effective solution that
fundamentally changes peak load management, and improves integration of
intermittent, renewable resources onto the grid.
By
leveraging the higher efficiencies associated with generating and
transmitting power off-peak, storing it at thousands of distributed
locations, and dispatching it during times of peak demand, Ice Energy’s
distributed energy storage system represents a transformational new
energy solution for the industry.
The company is
headquartered in Windsor, Colorado, with offices in Orange County and
Sacramento, California. For more information, visit
www.ice-energy.com.