Solar and Energy Storage Microgrid BEB Fleet Charging Solution
The University of Rochester owns 23 shuttle buses that operate on diesel fuel, however the University is committed to improving its carbon emissions and plans to replace its current bus fleet with battery electric buses in the near future. The proposed project will provide all of the required charging infrastructure needed to charge the new fleet of electric buses and will utilize an onsite solar generation and battery energy storage system (BESS) microgrid that will 1) help the University accelerate its bus electrification plans while reducing charging costs, 2) demonstrate an integrated electric bus fleet charging and electricity generation and storage approach that reduces peak demand by approximately 5 times, resulting in minimized grid upgrades and demonstrating a repeatable model to deploy electric buses which can be replicated by others in New York, and 3) reduces local emissions and greenhouse gases with solar generation and battery power.
The proposed fleet charging solution and solar and storage microgrid solution will act as the foundation for the deployment of University of Rochester's battery electric bus (BEB) fleet and will help provide them with a replicable solution that others in New York and in other places in the United States could use as well. The proposed solution would replace the possible 23 150 kW chargers with a single Proterra 1.5 MW charger with 23 charge cords that will allow all buses to be charged at a lower cost and that the ideal time. The combination of charging the BEBs at the optimized times and utilizing (currently 860 kW of solar and 350kW/1.4MWh of battery energy storage system (BESS), Scale to verify) further lowers the peak demand charge from 922 kW to just over 200 kW, which will consistently reduce electricity costs. Combined with innovative Proterra chargers, the "make ready" infrastructure required to connect to the grid is greatly reduced allowing the project to be deployed quicker and in a more cost-effective manner. Finally, the project will reduce carbon emissions associated with grid electricity as well as have the capability to provide resilient energy in the event grid electricity is not available. Depending on the timing of the outage, the microgrid can provide 4-15 hours of backup power at 80% full load. The resiliency could be increased further if the UofR were to create an emergency plan that would better match solar output with charging to further resilience.