By Jeanne LaBella
Southern
California Public Power Authority and its 12 member utilities will move
forward this year on deployment of a utility-scale ice storage air
conditioning project. The 53-MW project will permanently shift as much
as 64 gigawatt-hours of on-peak electricity consumption to off-peak
periods every year, the agency said.
SCPPA is
teaming up with Ice Energy, the Colorado-based manufacturer of the Ice
Bear energy storage module, for what the manufacturer says will be the
first such utility-scale project. SCPPA will install more than 6,000 Ice
Bear units at 1,500 government and commercial buildings in its member
communities. Most of the units will be installed at existing buildings,
said Chris Hickman, a spokesman for Ice Energy.
The
technology is "a convenient and cost-effective solution for managing
peak demand and aligns perfectly with our smart grid initiatives," said
Bill Carnahan, executive director of SCPPA.
The project will cost $115 million and is not supported by state or federal grants.
"The
project is deployable because it is cost-effective without incentives,"
said Hickman. Installation of the units will begin midyear in five
SCPPA member communities. Full installation is expected to take two
years.
Ice Energy will operate and maintain the
units for SCPPA under a long-term agreement that will extend for 10
years, with provision for two five-year renewals.
The
Ice Bear technology was tested in Anaheim, Calif., beginning in 2004.
The pilot project had a $10,000 grant from APPA's DEED (Demonstration of
Energy Efficient Developments) program. Today, 15 public power
utilities have units installed, Hickman said. The demonstration project
in Anaheim showed that the technology could reduce peak energy
consumption by 95 percent, from approximately 7,000 to 300 watts.
The
ice storage units are typically about the same size as a conventional
commercial air conditioning unit, measuring 8 by 4 by 4 feet. Each unit
is paired with an air conditioning unit. The Ice Bear works at night,
when electricity demand and prices are low, to produce and store ice for
later use. During daytime peak hours, the unit releases the ice to
provide cooling for the building, so the standard air conditioner is not
consuming on-peak electricity.
The units are
dispatchable down to the feeder level, so utilities can hold the ice in
storage until air conditioning demand is highest each day. The aggregate
electricity consumption of the air conditioner and the ice storage unit
is no greater than the amount of electricity normally consumed on peak
by an air conditioner, Hickman said.
As the ice
storage units are installed, some existing air conditioners may be
replaced with newer, cleaner, more efficient models, said Hickman. This
will help reduce greenhouse gases because many existing units use R22, a
coolant that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is phasing out
because it harms the ozone layer. New air conditioning units use R410A
refrigerant, which is not a greenhouse gas.