Editor's Note: We build sustainability into everything we do. This week, as we celebrate Climate Week, we are excited to spotlight a few of the projects that are helping us reduce our carbon footprint, foster energy innovation and conservation, and encourage our employees and the communities we serve to take action daily to ensure a sustainable future for generations to come.
In 2013, our company installed the country’s first utility-scale microgrid. Since then, we have built four more microgrids to help lessen the impact of public safety power shutoffs, also known as PSPS, for our communities located in wildfire-prone regions of San Diego county.
Microgrids are small grids that operate in parallel or independently of the larger electric grid. They have become an important tool to increase community resiliency, allowing us to keep the power flowing to critical facilities such as health clinics, schools or defense bases during a PSPS.
One of our newest microgrids is in Cameron Corners, a remote community of concern located in a high fire-threat district in eastern San Diego County. The Cameron Corners microgrid will feature a state-of-the-art 2,000 kWh flow battery system to store clean energy produced by local solar panels and power the CAL FIRE and central telecommunications switching station in the event of an extended outage or emergency.
Groundbreaking technology
The iron-oxide battery storage is the first of its kind to use ions, salt and water as electrolytes, making the energy storage non-hazardous, non-flammable and fully recyclable.
In addition to the battery, the Cameron Corners microgrid will feature an 875-kW solar array to generate renewable electricity and an advanced controller to integrated distributed energy resources. Once online, the Cameron Corners microgrid will support normal grid operations by generating solar power and dispatching that clean energy when needed to support grid stability and reliability.
Learn more about how we are shaping the future of community resiliency and clean energy with microgrids at sdge.com/microgrid.