The Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) has selected Eversource to receive up to $19.5 million in federal cost share to expand the benefits of its 24.9 MW Outer Cape Battery Energy Storage System (BESS).
Eversource’s Outer Cape microgrid optimization project, advanced in partnership with Cape Light Compact (CLC) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), will coordinate and optimize clean energy resources like solar panels, smart thermostats, and batteries with its Outer Cape BESS in Provincetown to extend the time taken by the BESS to provide customers with reliable power while crews work to make repairs.
The project will improve electric reliability for the Cape Cod region, which is especially susceptible to power outages caused by New England’s extreme weather.
The solution will employ advanced analytical tools to demonstrate the effectiveness of using distributed clean energy resources coordinated through a Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS). The project will also expand access to clean energy technologies and deliver direct reliability and resiliency benefits to 48,000 Cape Cod residents in vulnerable environmental justice communities.
As part of the project, Eversource along with Cape Cod Community College plans to develop a clean energy jobs pipeline program with stakeholders to provide career opportunities for the 3,200 Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe members and residents of environmental justice communities. The plan includes collaborating with a diverse group of stakeholders to design a Community Advisory Council providing inputs on the signing of a community benefit agreement, as well as recommendations on the implementation of the program.
Eversource is collaborating with the Community Advisory Council, which will include the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, and all its stakeholders to ensure an inclusive and participatory process addressing the unique needs of the community.
The project will expand upon Eversource’s commitment to equity and environmental justice and its investment in a resilient, flexible infrastructure to deal with the impacts of climate change, enable electrification, increase renewable energy production, meet the future energy needs of customers, as well as support the commonwealth’s decarbonization and energy equity goals.
Eversource’s Electric Sector Modernization Plan (ESMP) will increase electrification hosting capacity to include 2.5 million electric vehicles, one million residential heat pumps, and an additional 2.2 GW of new solar power over the next 10 years.
The plan will also focus on grid resiliency in environmental justice communities by prioritizing the areas for proactive grid upgrades to reduce future climate impacts. Eversource, along with the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and other stakeholders, will continue to increase the use of local clean energy resources as virtual power plant alternatives to address grid needs, defer system upgrades when possible, and help lower costs for customers.
