CALIFORNIA—After five years of determination and innovation, a team from the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region received a Federal Energy and Water Management Award for its Off-Grid Energy Savings Performance Contract ENABLE Project. This award recognizes federal government projects that cut energy waste and promote energy independence, resilience and security.

The project, a combination of lighting upgrades coupled with mobile, solar photovoltaic systems with battery back-up, will save 3,023 million British thermal units annually, offsetting nearly the entire energy load of the project sites. 

Completed in October 2019, it is the second ESPC Enable Project completed in Region 5 and only the fourth in the agency. The Forest Service was an early adopter of this contracting approach given the relatively small size and dispersed locations of its facilities.

“Use of the ESPC Enable Program allowed us to include multiple, small sites in a single contract, thereby standardizing and streamlining the procurement process,” said Cree Prevost, project contracting officer.

The Off-Grid ESPC Enable Project directly aligns with the Biden Administration’s emphasis on achieving net-zero emissions economy-wide by 2050 and a carbon pollution-free electricity sector by 2035 as well as the USDA Climate 21 Project Memo, which states that “USDA initiatives should emphasize collaboration, incentives, the historic resiliency and innovation of agriculture and forestry, and the critical role that rural America can play in helping address climate change while creating jobs and economic opportunity.” The project also supports the operational sustainability goals included in the agency’s 2020-2024 Sustainability Scorecard.

The scope of work (implemented by Trane Technologies) included five off-grid sites, one each at the Cleveland (Pine Hills Fire Station), Los Padres (Pacific Valley Ranger Station), Mendocino (Soda Creek Fire Station), Sequoia (Black Rock Work Station), and Plumas (Frenchman Work Center) national forests. The PV systems are paired with back-up batteries. Three have lead-acid batteries and two sites have lithium-ion batteries, which, in turn, provided the foundation for a National Technology & Development Program-led study comparing battery performance under varying conditions.

The project will save approximately $135,900 annually. As such, the simple payback for this $3 million effort is 22 years. However, due to an $840,000 Assisting Federal Facilities with Energy Conservation Technologies grant from the DOE, the adjusted simple payback, including the additional monies and capital cost avoidance for this project, was just under 16 years. 

The project includes additional, unique features, including addressing a shared challenge for land management agencies operating in remote locations and leveraging a partnership with the Department of Energy Federal Energy Management Program. 

“These off-grid sites, located in a range of climates and elevations, provided a great opportunity to test lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries, installed as back-up to the mobile solar PV power being generated,” said the technology and development program’s electronics engineer Ted Etter. “Land management agencies operating in remote locations have many facilities operating off diesel/propane generators. This project and the battery research provide a prototype which can be replicated across the agency and beyond.” 

This is Region 5’s fourth DOE Federal Energy and Water Management Award. The region’s most recent was in 2018, an award for its the first ESPC ENABLE project, covering projects at nine sites across the Los Padres and San Bernardino national forests that resulted in approximately 80% energy reduction.

More information about DOE’s Federal Energy and Water Management Award is available online.