Dec. 6, 2023 by Rod Walton, Managing Editor at Microgridknowledge.com
The four-year-long mission to create a microgrid utility in this community along Lake Erie has taken a timely step toward reality with Cuyahoga County Council leaders approving a 10-year contract with Compass Energy Platform this week.
Compass will act as the utility operator and will begin pre-construction engineering work in January now that the contract is finalized and approved. Construction on the first three microgrids could begin in 2025 with completion and operation expected in 2026 and 2027, Compass Energy Platform CEO Rick Bolton said in response to questions from Microgrid Knowledge.
Cuyahoga County started its path toward developing the concept of a microgrid utility in 2019. Now, along with $1.8 million in U.S. Department of Energy funding secured by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, Compass Energy Platform will bring its own capital and engineering partners along to help build and operate the projects beginning with the Euclid, Brooklyn and Aerozone sites, the latter adjacent to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
The district microgrids will be small in scale and able to disconnect and operate independently from the main grid. During outages, control systems will enable the microgrids to operate in “island” mode and keep power continuous.
While traditional microgrids typically serve single customers or a small number of adjacent customers, Cuyahoga Green Energy’s community microgrids will serve multiple interconnected customers. These customers will share resources, including solar panels and batteries, so that energy can be used more strategically.
The initial utility microgrids will focus on commercial and industrial customers and will expand in later stages to include schools, grocery stores, fire departments, and other government and community loads, the county’s statement reads.
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