ICAST has been tracking the rollout of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) dollars and helping our various customer segments access these funds to benefit low- and moderate-income communities. We are working on numerous community-scale solar PV and battery energy storage system (BESS) projects for Tribes, rural electric cooperatives, and municipalities. These include:
- a 2MW solar PV and 4MWh BESS for the City of Aztec in New Mexico,
- two 5MW solar and 10MWh BESS projects for the Tohono O’odham Nation in Arizona, and
- a 5MW solar and 10MWh BESS project for the City of Socorro in New Mexico, which is in the process of forming its own municipal utility.
In addition to increasing access to affordable, clean energy, these technologies can support energy reliability and resiliency. Late last year, the Department of Energy published the National Transmission Needs Study, which stated that the U.S. electric grid is strained due to aging infrastructure and insufficient transmission capacity. Transmission deployment faces siting and permitting challenges and requires a financial investment not feasible for all communities. Alternative transmission solutions (e.g., energy storage and grid-enhancing technologies) and the strategic siting of generation and transmission may help avoid these challenges. The study noted that these techniques are particularly useful for deferring new transmission investments by several years or in cases when the carrying capacity of existing transmission must be increased.
Most investments in integrating such solutions are concentrated in heavily populated urban areas and are made by investor-owned utilities (IOUs). Grant funds tend to favor these IOUs as well. Rural communities constitute a largely untapped opportunity for alternative transmission solutions and, thus, present a significant opportunity to scale technology adoption and improve energy services for households. ICAST works to increase uptake in rural areas by providing its turnkey service, which covers project planning and design, site and vendor selection, construction management and commissioning, financing (often in collaboration with the Triple Bottom Line Foundation), workforce development, etc. We have also been crafting resources to help stakeholders develop and execute their own projects. For example, we recently produced Request for Qualifications (RFQ) templates to help U.S. Dept. of Agriculture New ERA (Empowering Rural America) and PACE (Powering Affordable Clean Energy) awardees select contractors to implement their project scopes.
To learn more about our efforts, follow this link.