A prototype community southeast of Los Angeles, California, aims to demonstrate the advantages of prosumers in a disadvantaged community selling into electricity markets and reaping a cleaner environment plus income and resilience.
The Basset-Avocado Advanced Energy Community (BAAEC) is funded in part by a $9 million grant from the California Energy Commission’s EPIC program, said Luis Felipe Cano, CEO of Community Electricity. His company has partnered with The Energy Coalition, Energy Web, UCLA and others on the project, the second phase of which is expected to be completed in 2023. The Energy Coalition is the prime contractor for the EPIC grant.
The total investment for the prototype project’s first and second phase will be about $20 million, which includes matching funds from partners that include vendors, he said.
Initially, a prosumer network made up of 50 single family homes equipped with PV and energy storage will be created. Also critical to the project will be a resilience hub, based on a microgrid, located at the Evergreen Baptist Church campus. It will consist of rooftop PV solar, community solar, electric vehicle (EV) charging and battery energy storage.
Residents will be equipped with a mobile app, called iDecarb, that will help community residents become prosumers, showing them how to generate revenues by selling electricity and renewable energy credits into California markets while at the same time decarbonizing the community, Cano said. The app connects to a platform, Energy Web, that allows members to sell green energy and allowances to California markets using a community operating system. For now, the possible sales are simulated because all of the regulatory frameworks aren’t in place to allow for the sales.
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