Research Performance Progress Report Part 1 (RPPR1)
Project Title:
Solar+Storage for Resiliency
Project Period:
01/01/15 – 12/31/16
Reporting Period:
4/1/15 – 6/30/15
Submission Date:
8/5/15
Recipient:
San Francisco Dept. of the Environment
Address:
1455 Market St
San Francisco, CA 94103
Website (if available)
www.sfenvironment.org
Award Number:
DE-EE0006906
Working Partners:
ARUP, Strategen, Celtic Energy
Cost-Sharing Partners:
CalCharge
CCSF: City Administrator’s Office
CCSF: Chief Resiliency Officer
CCSF: Dept. of Emergency Management
CCSF: Dept. of Public Health
CCSF: Planning Dept.
CCSF: SFPUC
CCSF: Mayor’s Office
Clean Coalition
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Pacific Gas & Electric
Renewable Funding
Sandia National Laboratories
Urban Sustainability Directors Network
Alameda County
Principal Investigator:
Cal Broomhead
Climate and Energy Program Manager
Phone: 415-355-3706
Fax: 415-554-6393
Email: cal.broomhead@sfgov.org
Submitted by:
(if other than PI)
DOE Contracting Officer: Diana Bobo/Jeannette Singsen/Clay Pfrangle
DOE Project Manager:
Angela Crooks
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Award Number: DE-EE0006906
Narrative Report and Update:
Administrative Note:
City internal administrative approvals were not completed until June, causing a late start
for full engagement of the project’s prime subcontractor, ARUP. The impact is that
Milestones are partially completed, details below.
Milestones:

(M2.1) Review Existing Disaster Prep Plans and set criteria for rating plans.
Review the San Francisco Plan and a minimum of 2 other plans from other states
in the US.
Status: A substantial amount of research has been performed; however, no criteria for
rating plans have been set or can yet be reported. This will complete in Q3.
Gathered existing City disaster preparedness plans including:
1. CCSF All Hazards Strategic Plan
2. CCSF Emergency Response Plan
3. CCSF Energy Assurance Strategy
4. CCSF Hazard Mitigation Plan
5. CCSF Priority Route Inspection and Clearance Plan
6. Neighborhood Resilience Action Plan: Bayview
7. Neighborhood Resilience Action Plan: Miraloma
Other California plans:
1. California Energy Assurance Plan
2. Visalia, CA Local Energy Assurance Plan
Out of state plans: Most of the emergency plans collected make no mention of energy
emergencies, energy storage, batteries, or micro-grids. The following plans reference
micro-grids and the importance of energy storage.
1. Portland, OR: Local Energy Assurance Plan
2. New Orleans Energy Assurance Plan
3. Connecticut Comprehensive Energy Strategy
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Other state disaster preparedness plans make little reference to energy issues,
however, the team widened research into resilient systems that either have been or are
being deployed. The below research looked at existing critical facility energy surety
projects that use photovoltaics (PV) plus energy storage (ES), often in conjunction with
existing fossil-fueled (typically diesel or natural gas) emergency or standby generation
sets (gensets) in hybrid PV+ES+genset configurations. The objective is to describe
technical and procurement characteristics and lessons learned from project planning,
procurement, design, construction and operation. Issues of particular interest include
(but are not limited to) life cycle costs and benefits; load assessment and isolation or
shedding to inform generation & storage sizing; relationship of PV+ES installations to
existing emergency or standby fossil generation and associated electrical distribution
infrastructure; and building code issues related to PV+ES siting and operation in gridindependent mode. Carr, Lotspeich and the project team have developed a draft set of
questions and topics for this research.
As of this quarterly report output, two site visits have been conducted, as well as several
telephone interviews. Conducted a tour of the Salt Lake City, Utah Public Safety
Building, led by one of the lead engineering designer Curtis Clark of GSBS Architects.
Visited ABB’s Will Galton and his microgrid team at the ABB Smart Grid Center at NC
State University in Raleigh, NC to interview them about their McAlpine PV+ES project
conducted with Duke Energy at a substation and fire station in Charlotte, NC. A site
visit was not possible then but will be attempted in the near future. Both tours leveraged
work travel scheduled in those areas for other reasons, to conserve DOE Solar Market
pathways grant funds.
CASE EXAMPLES TO BE STUDIED:
a. Charlotte, NC McAlpine Creek hybrid PV+ES+genset project for a substation and
fire station
ACTIVITY: Visited and interviewed ABB’s Will Galton and his microgrid team at the
ABB Smart Grid Center at NC State University in Raleigh, NC. A site visit was not
possible then but will be attempted in the near future, leveraging business travel to the
area.
OVERVIEW: Duke Energy and ABB conducted a project installing 50 kW of PV
adjacent to substation to experiment with operational benefits. It was then decided to
both add 200 kW / 500 kWh Lithium-Iron-phosphate battery ES, plus microgrid controls,
and then to serve adjacent Fire Station No. 24 connected to the substation by a radial
feeder. System has the capability to serve the ~25 kW fire station load in gridindependent operation. Fire station also has standby diesel generation, which is not
operated simultaneous to the PV+ES system in a hybrid configuration.
STATUS: Operational
b. Dennis-Yarmouth HS PV+ES at shelter high school
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ACTIVITY: Conducted a detailed telephone interview with several project particiapnts
responsible for securing a DOER grant award for ES.
STATUS: PV systems operational, grant funding received, ES under development.
OVERVIEW: Local authority received MA DOER grant to add ~500 kWh lithium ion ES
to two existing PPA-funded PV installations at shelter high school that serves as the
food distribution point for regional emergency shelters. Objective is to provide
economic value via load shifting during normal operations as well as PV+ES energy
surety in grid independent mode, in conjunction with existing diesel emergency
generation.
c. Florida Solar Schools program
ACTIVITY: Conducted online research and made initial contact with State Energy office
officials to conduct telephone interviews.
STATUS: Numerous operational sites with PV+ES serving limited loads.
The size of the projects are typically small for example the emergency battery output is
in the range of 1 kW and this covers primarily lighting in designated shelter areas in
Florida Schools.
d. Fremont, CA fire station(s) PV+ES project
ACTIVITY: Conducted online research.
OVERVIEW: In May 2015 the City of Fremont received a $1.8 million grant from The
California Energy Commission (CEC) Electric Investment Charge Program (EPIC)
Project Group 1: Demonstration of Low-Carbon Microgrids for Critical Facilities. The
grant will install a PV+ES microgrid including 3 fire stations including 3 hours duration of
ES emergency backup power (supplemented by a fossil fuel generation).
STATUS: Grant funding awarded, project under development.
e. Northampton, MA fire station hybrid PV+diesel standby generation, plan for ES
ACTIVITY: Conducted a brief telephone interview with a City of Northampton energy
and sustainability official Chris Mason, who will arrange a site visit and interviews with
project personnel.
OVERVIEW: This project received a grant from the MA DOER microgrids program to
place PV panels on a fire station with the primary objective of conserving diesel
generator fuel during grid-independent operations. Added ES is in planning.
STATUS: PV operational, ES in planning.
f. Rutland, VT landfill PV+ES serving shelter school
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ACTIVITY: Conducted online research and contacted project contractor Morgan
Casella of Dynamic Organics, who will arrange a site visit and introduction to other
project personnel.
OVERVIEW: The Stafford Hill Solar Farm is a project involving utility Green Mountain
Power and other partners, and combines solar, storage and micro-grid technology in an
innovative new solar project to improve resiliency and safety in communities. According
to the U.S. Department of Energy, The Stafford Hill Solar Farm is the first project to
establish a micro-grid powered solely by solar and battery back-up, with no other fuel
source. The site hosts 2 MW landfill PV plus 4 MW of both lead acid and lithium ion
batteries, allowing the disconnection of an entire circuit from the grid in an emergency to
provide critical power for an emergency shelter at Rutland High School. Grant funding
from the DOE is covering $235,000 of the $10 million price tag; the Vermont Public
Service Department chipped in another $50,000 through the Clean Energy
Development Fund.
STATUS: PV+ES system operational
g. Salt Lake City, UT Public Safety Building
ACTIVITY: Conducted a tour of the Salt Lake City, Utah Public Safety Building, led by
one of the lead engineering designer Curtis Clark of GSBS Architects.
OVERVIEW: The Salt Lake City, Utah Public Safety Building (PSB) is one of the largest
net zero energy buildings in the U.S. and is one of the leading examples of intentional
resilient design for a municipal critical facility. It has 350 kW of rooftop PV, of which 100
kW of “islandable” capacity are secured against Richter 7.5 seismic event by a custom
design cable tethering system linked to the building’s earthquake-resistant structural
members. In addition 35 kW of PV on an awning over the public space include plug-in
outlets at the base of the support pillars for public device charging. No ES is currently
installed. 100 kW of the PV systems are designed to operate in conjunction with the
PSB’s diesel standby generation in grid-independent mode.
Santa Rita, CA jail PV+ES+generation microgrid
ACTIVITY: Conducted online research. This site is part of a visit planned within the
project period.
OVERVIEW: The jail has a 3 MW peak load and ~$3 M/yr utility costs, and hosts a
widely-described site microgrid featuring 2 x 1.2 MW Diesel Generators, 1 MW Fuel
Cell, 2 MW battery, 1.2 MW PV, 2.3 kW wind, and a Microgrid Controller enabling
seamless transition to island mode.

(M3.1) Issue Draft GIS Plans (at least 12 GIS maps in total). Draft GIS plans
include buildings that have power needs in an extended power outage and group
nearby buildings into potential microgrid areas.
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Status: As of the close of this quarter, this task had barely begun. We started a GIS
map of the 200 critical facilities; however, it was noted by Dept of Emergency
Management that the list was not complete and that departments were being polled to
finish the update of the list. We established criteria for buildings to be considered that
required further information gathering.
The key criteria we are going to use to filter the 200+ buildings into high priority
buildings is to only consider buildings that are likely to be ‘green tagged’ following an
emergency. From the research work we have conducted, in San Francisco following a
M7.9 earthquake 60% of the cities power is restored within 3 days and 95% is restored
within a week. A yellow tagged and red tagged buildings will not be occupied within this
time frame, there is no use for a solar and storage system on these buildings. See
below a graph from the 2013 SF Linelines study.
As of this writing significant progress has been made and we expect to have the
preliminary microgrid zones established and under review by the member of the Board
of Supervisors in each district. We are also planning to host an online version of the GIS
maps which we will issue user names and passwords to the DoE. This allows the GIS
maps to be interactive to anyone with a web browser, no other software is required.
Other Relevant Information:
Other work has progressed during this period as follows:
1. Energy Storage Services and Regulatory Difficulty – see attached document.
This has been used to inform the finance tasks.
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2. Research on existing Tools that perform solar and storage calculation. See
attached memo and spreadsheet.
3. Work completed on building the solar + storage analysis tool – short summary
provided below:
The tool being developed uses a combination of HTML, JavaScript, and Python to
create an interactive and user friendly web application. The tool is structured to allow
the user to input (1) address, (2) area of the building, (3) percentage of building load to
power, and (4) the duration (between 1 and 7 days) for which to calculate PV system
size and battery storage capacity. Depending on the level of accuracy desired, the user
will be able to select from a list of preset building loads or upload the load for that
specific building. The below screen shots shown the logic flowchart and also some test
screen shots from the test website.
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Other Activities:
April 1. Held the first Working Group stakeholder meeting. Attached are the attendee
list and spreadsheet of roles and responsibilities. The stakeholders raised many of the
issues already considered to be part of the project. Initiated weekly team meetings (9
AM PST at 415-554-8755). Informed all of the website for information.
May 4-6. Attended the Solar Market Pathways meeting in Salt Lake City. The team
included Amy Ramirez, Department of Emergency Management; Jamie Siedel, Public
Utilities Commission, Russell Carr, ARUP; Cal Broomhead, PI. The team’s activity
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focused on the process and criteria for selecting facilities to be included in the project.
This differed from the Q1 activity of attending the RMI E-Lab Accelerator in that meeting
focused on the design issues and processes, rather than the selection of sites. This
event resulted in key relationships developed with the teams from CUNY, Salt Lake City
and other attendees. Notes:
SMP SCLA Day 1: 4 May 2015
San Francisco Team Huddle 1: Team members: Cal Broomhead, Russell Carr, Amy Ramirez,
Jamie Seidel
Goals for the meeting:
o CB: networking with people. Go through all the key tasks re: site selection,
process, schedule what are the tasks when they will be accomplished. Get details
fleshed out by each other. Link CUNY in. Kind of a San Francisco like project on
a grander scale.
o RC mentions Tesla home storage announcement: Relatively cheap storage system
developed my Tesla. 10 kw hours of capacity, which adds up to about 5 hours of
the average household demand.
 Peak demand in residential CA is 2KW hours
 Average pretty low by virtue of multi-family housing scenarios.
 2.5kw system you can store all the energy you need for a day
- CB: 2 things: (1) which of the tasks would everyone like to focus on?; (2) which experts
would you like to meet with?
o JS: Question re map distributed by AR
 These are the high-level id’d sites?
 AR: as part of the rewrite of the Bay Area Catastrophic Earthquake
Plan, FEMA asked DEM to id all the facilities that have a critical
power need in the city. AR took all the facilities listed in hazard
mitigation plan (retaining walls, roadways, everything in the plan)
and merged with some other lists from other depts. (including
PUC) and criteria from Dept of Building Inspection (criteria for
buildings they will inspect in a certain time span) applied to
facilities she had on spreadsheet. So, map is in her mind (1) not
entirely comprehensive, and (2) really need to revisit the criteria
they used. But good starting point to id hospitals, shelters, etc
o Reaching out to PGE to see if they have a list of private
facilities that have been identified as having a critical
power need.
o Parks and Rec facilities listed because they might serve as
shelters
 RC: Is there a list of power needs as well?
 AR: From PUC got power needs for 2014, not necessarily power
for emergency, but total power for the year. Only includes facilities
owned by the City where electricity is provided by the PUC.
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-
Wouldn’t include hospitals or critical facilities that are privately
owned.
 Community involvement example = Chinatown going through process of
id’ing facilities that are essential
 Some on overall list distributed by AR, but some not, including
public housing development (of 4 buildings) which are housing
authority properties.
o As much as possible, the City wants residents to be able to
shelter at home rather than having to go to a shelter when
there is not structural damage to the building.
o Bring in Housing Authority to figure out where to put in
PV for future disaster management plan
o Community centers in neighborhoods not id’d as critical
load but so close to other facilities that it might create a
critical link, which would expand list of possible facilities
 What point should the public be engaged? Who
should be engaged and who would know where to
look for id’ing potential critical sites?
 Chinatown good community to include because they have a lot of
non-profits and similar facilities that might be good to include.
o But space at a premium. Lots of constraints. Very few
parking lots even.
o Solar at the medical center in Chinatown already, they have
space in their upper mechanical room.
 AR: what’s at the top of the Empress of China building? Not sure
what we’re looking for, but just wondering
o Might be opportunities to use that if there’s nothing up
there
 AR: Solar panels need to be on the roof? And storage on the
ground?
o Russell: it can be anywhere, it’s likely to need a parking
spot sized area to hold the batteries, and putting something
that size on top of a building in an earthquake zone seems
like a bad idea. Looking at group of communities that
might have good qualities for storage siting.
First task: Creating a Working Group
o Dept of Emergency Mgmt, PUC, PGE = tech team
o 2 labs
o Financial resources like Renewable Funding, RMI
o One hole we don’t as yet have someone official from Fire Dept or Police Dept
 Made contact with Erica, fire lieutenant operating emergency response
team
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
-
-
She’d know community feedback, but won’t know critical loads
for specific fire depts.
 Ivan Sequeira- Police department contact knows all the facilities
 Fire Dept- equivalent person- question for Shane
 Having a meeting with the fire department captain Matt Pais from San
Jose, he’s become a national expert on fire safety for PV and batteriesMonday at 10am
 Shane will be there
o Participation from Cindy at the Health Department coming at it from the Climate
Adaptation effort
 Need to get to the plant services director at the San Francisco General
Hospital. They oversee all the neighborhood clinics. Their Engineers will
know all of that.
 JS: How much backup diesel generators do hospitals have
 R: They’ll have 3 days worth of fuel storage, only 5MW capacity
generator. This project isn’t to replace back-up generators, as that
would require batteries the size of football fields.
Some of the consideration for who will participate is who can help give us the lead into
the specific facilities that are selected re: built, maintained, how they’re operated
o How operated = Key point
o Do some surveys of these buildings: When push comes to shove, what do they
really really need?
 In a firehouse e.g.: Comms, opening doors, cooking facilities, etc
o Do we have enough of those people now?
o Non-profits might be useful. SF CARD (Community Agencies Responding to
Disaster) might be a good connector to nonprofits since their role is to help them
develop disaster plans.
 Food Kitchens, (e.g.: Food Bank has identified their essential power need
as batteries for their forklifts)
 SFCARD can help do surveys with orgs they work with regularly
 RC: Can we do a survey soon, surveys for each type of building types by
services (typical fire station, typical police station, etc.)
 DPH has a contract with SFCARD. GSA may, but they may not anymore.
 Can $15,000 be fit through to get them on board
Approach
o AR: Are we looking at it geographically?
 CB: The thought was at least one PV site in every supervisor’s area. Two
reasons: (1) Politics; (2) To have them spread around all over the city, so
you know there is at least one place in every district that has power in an
emergency.
 AR: Emergency mgmt. divides city into battalion stations for FD (11 in
the city) which takes into consideration geography and fire station
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locations rather than supervisorial boundaries. Don’t know if that’s a
consideration in terms of where the fire stations are around the city
 CB: We figured at least 12 sites would be placed around the city. Two in
Bayview (Clean Coalition helping with scoping here, a lot of study already
done), everyone else gets one. If we can end up doing 1 or two more,
great, but how much of Cal Tech and other lab time do we end up burning
up? We want to do 12 but can we do 14?
 Russell: we’d like to do as many as we can
 CB: we’d like to get a map of the fire battalions, AR will provide
o Researching current status/limitations of emergency preparedness plan
 That’s what they’re doing at this point.
 This project fits in with the City’s Energy Assurance Plan which will be
an annex to the Emergency Response Plan
o Talk to supervisors about what neighborhoods in their districts they’d like to see
have a PV system. Get their input on where would be most effective.
 JS: Should this be more driven to offering critical services in response to a
disaster as opposed to supervisor driven? Opening yourself up to what is
truly a critical need?
 AR: Do we id the critical need and then approach to supervisor?
 JS: If it’s to offer critical need in time of a disaster that’s the driving force
not what the supervisors think.
 CB: Talk to emergency response teams, etc and they might say that they
have one region covered and suggest soft spots elsewhere. Then meet with
supervisors to ask if their thoughts align with emergency services
May 8. Presented at Department of Building Inspection, Code Advisory Committee,
Green Building Subcommittee.
May 11. Meeting about Fire code and fire safety for PV and Battery technologies with
Capt. Matt Paiss from City of San Jose Fire Department. Other attendees were: Chris
Lotspeich, Russell Carr, Asst. Deputy Chief Shane Francisco, Building Inspector Kirk
Means, Cal Broomhead, Terra Weeks. Notes:
Fire and PV with Energy Storage
 PV:
o not about burning panels
o its about fire access via the roof
o importance of venting a fire
 clears smoke
 directs fire to center
 allows for safer entry and escape
o need center of the building
o depends on building occupancy type
o need to move around on the roof
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
o CA requires 4 ft swath front to back, side to side
o setbacks on front and from peak ridge
Batteries:
o Involved in a fire
o Cause of a fire: internal runaway (catalyzed) fire
o Battery types: flow, lead acid, lithium ion, etc.
 Chemistry matters
 Different chemistries require different approach and solution
(M1.3) Suitable Solar+Storage Sites Report; Identify at least 10 suitable buildings to
inform Task 2.
May 26. Meeting of the Municipal Facilities working group subcommittee.
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June 1. Meeting of the Regulatory working group subcommittee.
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June 26. Phone call with City of Berkeley about sharing microgrid project insights.
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