City of Montezuma selected as first rural Iowa community to receive a small-scale ‘microgrid’3/9/2024 The City of Montezuma Municipal Light & Power (MMLP) in connection with Iowa State University researchers has been selected as the first rural Iowa community to receive nearly $10 million to install a microgrid, a small-scale electricity network that can operate as an independent system or can be connected to the larger grid, along with two electric vehicle charging stations. Construction on the project, which includes a solar field east of town, is slated to being in mid-2025. The system would produce 3 megawatts of renewable energy, reduce energy purchases by 3.5 gigawatt hours and reduce transmission costs by 34 percent. By J.O. Parker
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced last week that a project led by Iowa State University researchers in connection with the City of Montezuma Municipal Light & Power (MMLP) has been selected for award negotiations with the goal of building the first “microgrid” in a rural Iowa community. The proposal submitted by Iowa State researchers and MMPL called for a federal investment of roughly $9.5 million and a local cost-share of $2.4 million from university and Montezuma sources. That $11.9 million investment would provide Montezuma with a microgrid, a small-scale electricity network that can operate as an independent system or can be connected to the larger grid. Secretary of Energy Granholm also announced other regional projects in the East, Midwest, West and Alaska. All 17 projects are part of the Energy Improvements in Rural or Remote Areas program managed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. The project The proposal would transform the generation and distribution of electricity in Montezuma, a town of about 1,400 residents, 70 miles east of Des Moines. The project will create a utility-scale microgrid to provide reliable, resilient and affordable electricity. The new system would feature power generation from solar panels and a battery storage system. The project would also replace aging substations, load monitoring and control systems and provide the town with its first two electric vehicle chargers. It is expected to drop energy costs in Montezuma by an estimated 18 percent. It would also reduce costs for MMLP by an estimated hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Project leaders say the new microgrid would provide electricity to local communities, Poweshiek County offices, small businesses and manufacturers. The system would produce 3 megawatts of renewable energy, reduce energy purchases by 3.5 gigawatt hours and reduce transmission costs by 34 percent. According Kevin Kudart, the superintendent of MMLP, the solar field will be installed on 10-acres of MMPL owned land east of Montezuma. He added that plans at this time are to install the two electric vehicle chargers at the Montezuma Public Library. Kudart added that the 2.4 million in funds will come from MMLP reserves. It will be at least another year before construction gets started. “Even though the project is underway and that work is ongoing, the earliest construction will begin is mid-2025,” said Kudart. The project will include the installation of a new substation behind city hall and that no changes in the city’s current diesel powered generation station will take place as part of the project. Zhaoyu Wang, a Northrop Grumman associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Iowa State who’s affiliated with the university’s Electric Power Research Center and is the project leader noted that this project will make the entire town of Montezuma the very first utility-scale microgrid in Iowa with the best reliability and resilience. “The Montezuma microgrid will revolutionize and modernize the Montezuma Municipal Light and Power system by integrating smart grid technologies,” said Wang. “It will be a model for other rural utilities. “The microgrid will improve Montezuma by ensuring energy supplies for critical loads, controlling power quality and reliability at the local level, and promoting customer participation through demand-side management and involvement in electricity supply,” he added. “This is so much more than an R&D project because it will directly benefit more than 1,400 Montezuma residents and generate significant impacts on surrounding counties. It shows Iowa State University is working to bring real benefits to Iowans and boost local economies.” Anne Kimber, the director of the Electric Power Research Center and a co-leader of the project, said Montezuma residents depend on electricity for city and county services, schools, health care, shopping and employment and that this project will benefit the rural farming and manufacturing community. “During the August 2020 derecho, Montezuma was able to keep the lights on by running its existing diesel generation fleet, which kept essential services available to the surrounding area,” noted Kimber. “This new microgrid will have immediate benefits for the community because it will provide a resilient power system with new technology that integrates renewable generation, and the project design can be replicated in other rural communities. The digital twin of the Montezuma microgrid and the training curricula that we’ll develop and test with various partners – ranging from K-12 schools, the Meskwaki Nation, unions and community colleges – will build an energy workforce.” “This is a huge benefit for our customers and for local economic development because it provides long-term rate stability from the solar and the battery energy storage systems,” said Kudart. “Our reliability will increase with the new, more modern switchgear, and our outage time will be reduced by having new controls. And we’ll promote good customer relations by providing vehicle charging stations.” Project partners also include Dennis Haselhoff from DGR Engineering based in Rock Rapids, and Warren McKenna, an independent consultant based in Kalona.
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