Colorado’s Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) has selected a project sponsored by United Power to receive a grant from the more than $2 million awarded through the Microgrids for Community Resilience Grant Program.
The program, established by House Bill 22-1013, will improve community resilience during electric grid disruptions through the development of microgrids.
United Power was awarded $700,696 to offset the cost of microgrid systems to support rural emergency services in the cooperative’s territory. United Power’s project is one of the initial projects funded since the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded the Colorado Energy Office (CEO) and DOLA $17.2 million for the first two years of a five-year funding program.
The funds will be used to support the study of the potential role of microgrids in advancing state energy goals, such as increasing the resiliency and reliability of the electric grid; reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and supporting the state’s transition to clean energy and beneficial electrification.
The award will offset the cost of microgrid systems, placing batteries at four facilities in the United Power service territory: Blue Mountain Fire Station #3 (Coal Creek Canyon); Frederick Firestone Fire Protection District Station #4 (Del Camino); Hudson Fire Protection District Station #3 (Lochbuie); and Mountain View Fire Rescue Station #7 (Dacono).
“The battery systems we have proposed will allow the selected fire stations to operate uninterrupted in the event of a power outage, so they can provide critical services to our members during an emergency,” said Mark A. Gabriel, President and CEO of United Power. “Cooperatives, which are governed locally, are ideally situated to test and deploy local energy solutions.”
The batteries will ensure these critical response facilities continue to operate during widespread outage occurrences in the area. They will not only provide additional benefits to cooperative members as a load balancing tool during non-emergency conditions but also reduce the need to activate fossil fuel backup generation during outages.
The project backs United Power’s ongoing efforts to build a more resilient and responsive local grid comprising of a variety of local generation resources, while allowing for local balancing of system demand.
