Faith Technologies, in partnership with Schneider Electric, has designed and built a state-of-the-art, clean energy microgrid at the Gordon Bubolz Nature Preserve in Appleton, Wisconsin. As one of the most advanced microgrids in existence, the Gordon Bubolz Nature Preserve project acts as a testing site for increasingly sophisticated microgrid operations, allowing testing and measurement of a microgrid technologies’ impact in a real-world environment while supporting the Gordon Bubolz Nature Preserve’s mission.
Engineered, procured and constructed by Faith Technologies, the microgrid’s integrated distributed energy resources (DER) are managed by Schneider Electric’s Energy Control Center, an intelligent, pre-engineered power control center, and optimized by Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Microgrid Advisor, a cloud-connected Software-as-a-Service platform. The sophisticated tool can autonomously configure the DERs into a range of different permutations to produce the most efficient, clean, and cost-effective combination of energy resources available at any given time. Energy pricing and resource availability can change minute by minute, so this modular, scalable, repeatable microgrid technology will help the Gordon Bubolz Nature Preserve unlock better financial sustainability.
By integrating a high-tech microgrid controller, the microgrid can manage its production and consumption of renewable energy and control energy spend, reaching the highest levels of sustainability, reliability, and efficiency possible for a microgrid.
Given the software is cloud-connected, the system will continue to grow in sophistication over the years without the need for any on-site visits or physical changes made by Schneider Electric or Faith Technologies. This allows the two companies to monitor the microgrid assets and update its programming remotely. For example, the microgrid feeds live data on its performance to a display at the Faith Technologies Innovation Center in Menasha, Wisconsin.
