Utility Dive
Summary
California utilities have been deploying proactive power outages — called public safety power shutoffs — during weather conditions that increase the risk that their infrastructure might cause wildfires. From 2013 through 2019, the state’s three large investor-owned utilities companies deployed 33 such outages, according to the CPUC.
This microgrid’s use of green hydrogen fuel cells and batteries marks a departure from PG&E’s earlier practice of using diesel generators for backup power during outages. California regulators directed PG&E to begin transitioning to cleaner sources of backup power in 2021, by procuring a minimum of one clean substation microgrid project that could be used during wildfire-related outages.
The microgrid, proposed to regulators last December, is expected to begin operating in 2024 for a planned period of 10.5 years. Unlike the traditionally-used diesel generators, this project will lead to no emissions of criteria air pollutants, PG&E noted in its December letter to the commission. If successfully developed, the microgrid “would represent a major advance in microgrid development and a very significant step toward cleaner forms of microgrid generation,” the utility added.
The microgrid project represents a good starting point in terms of understanding the technical capabilities of this type of fuel cell-plus-storage configuration, according to Noh.
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