Origo Investments is partnering with industry veterans Amond World to develop a refrigerated cold storage facility in the Madera Airport Industrial Park, which will include two 250,000 sq. ft buildings, each holding approximately 50 million lbs of almonds or other recently harvested crops for farmers and processors.
In order to guarantee energy access, reliability and cost economics while considering the sustainability of the facility, Origo has partnered with Scale Microgrids to design, build, own and operate an off-grid clean energy microgrid providing cheaper, cleaner and more reliable power.
The microgrid system will include 1,200 kW of rooftop solar. Storage of the solar energy will be provided by a 1,200 kW/ 2,400 kWh battery system. The microgrid will include two 1,200 kW enhanced emission-reducing controllable generators.
“The developer came to us with a need for an off-grid, sustainable and reliable power system for their facility in order to expedite their project development timeline”, said Ryan Goodman, CEO and co-founder at Scale Microgrids. “The sheer number of pounds of valuable inventory in this facility makes it absolutely impossible to have anything less than 100% continuous, reliable power. Our microgrid provides them with predictable, low energy costs for the long-term, clean power and peace of mind. We both finance and operate the system, leaving Amond World with only needing to focus on the farmers and the almonds.”
California is facing energy capacity shortfalls and extreme weather events, creating unpredictability for the local utility grid. The off-grid microgrid that Scale is building in Madera can run off of solar and storage alone for part of the day, a unique aspect for this size of a project.
Construction is already underway for the cold storage warehouses, where inside temperatures will dip down to 32℉. The energy system and buildings plan to be fully commissioned by May 2023.
News item from Scale Microgrids
