Creative Solutions for Large Scale Renewables

Transcription

1 Creative Solutions for Large Scale Renewables Presented to the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference June 27, 2017 Dennis K. Elliot, PE, CEM Director of Energy, Utilities and Sustainability Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

2 State of Renewables at Cal Poly SLO Cal Poly is a PG&E bundled service customer Non-export service agreement Transmission level service on E20T ~$0.115/kWh 2006 CSU/DGS Solar Phase I 135 kw rooftop system 0.7% No viable projects from CSU Solar Phase II or III Several 2 to 5 kw rooftop systems Cal Poly committed to climate neutrality How do we go big with solar PV?

3 RES-BCT Program Structure Renewable Energy Self-generation Bill Credit Transfer Production via TOU Generating Account Utility $ Bill Credit to TOU Benefitting Account Up to 5MW Renewable Energy System Campus $ PPA

4 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

5 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

6 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

7 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

8 Site Evaluation

9 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

10 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

11 Academic Component of RFP 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

12 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

13 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

14 Project Results REC Solar selected 11,300,000 kwh/year 25% of campus needs Savings NPV of $17.1M ($26.8M total) PPA Price Structure: $0.116/kWh in years 1-6 (blended A6 gen value $0.131/kWh) $0.012/kWh in years 7-20 (covers O&M only) PG&E has filed rate case to reduce A6 gen value to $0.927/kWh Rate case would reduce NPV savings to $7.2M CSU and Cal Poly are party to rate case settlement Will renegotiate PPA structure to ensure positive cashflow Y1-6

15 Solar Farm Layout

16 Solar Laboratory Multiple small PV arrays Fixed & adj tilt/orientation Fully instrumented String vs microinverter Integrating with EE microgrid from 2016 CALL grant

17 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!

18 Links and Resources Dennis Elliot (805) Eric Veium (805) PG&E RES-BCT: RES-BCT tariff: PG&E PV RAM Map: Questions?