Gridscape to Develop Microgrids for California CCA East Bay Community Energy

May 5, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 5, 2023

Gridscape has been selected by California community choice aggregator East Bay Community Energy to develop microgrids for approximately 30 critical facilities.

The project will see Gridscape install 3.1 megawatts of solar PV systems and 6.2 megawatt hours of battery storage systems at 30 sites.

The initiative is part of EBCE’s Resilient Municipal Critical Facilities Program, which aims to bundle small community projects into a larger portfolio to achieve economies of scale and viability.

Gridscape will oversee all aspects of this project. Alok Singhania, partner, Gridscape, says that the program’s unique business model bundles sites from multiple cities into one portfolio to achieve economies of scale in project financing, legal, procurement, and construction.

Vipul Gore, CEO of Gridscape, says the project is likely to take around 18 months to complete, with the main barriers being permit approval delays, utility interconnection delays, and supply chain delays, although these are improving and may not pose a delay to this project.

The project will mark Gridscape’s largest deployment of microgrids under a single third-party financed PPA agreement, demonstrating how bundling small community projects can achieve economies of scale, making local power plant projects viable, the company said.

The program received a $2 million grant from Congress.

EBCE operates a community choice energy program in the California Bay Area for Alameda County and fourteen incorporated cities, serving more than 1.7 million residential and commercial customers.

EBCE initiated service in June 2018 and expanded to Tracy in neighboring San Joaquin County in 2021 and will expand service to Stockton in 2024.