Solar-powered bus depot produces green hydrogen – pv warehouse USA

June 14, 2024 Anna Fischer

The integrated microgrid infrastructure project in Rockville, Maryland, will be the nation’s largest bus depot powered by renewable energy and the first on the East Coast to produce green hydrogen on-site, according to developer AlphaStruxure.

The microgrid will be built at the David F. Bone Equipment Maintenance and Transportation Center (EMTOC) in Montgomery County, which is the county’s fifth-largest energy user. With the depot eventually powering 200 zero-emission buses, it will support the county’s climate goal of achieving 100% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2035.

The 7 MW microgrid will consist of 5 MW Sunpower solar modules, a 2 MW/7.35 MWh Schneider Electric battery energy storage system and 4.5 MW charging capacity. It will also use SMA inverters and be equipped with EV chargers from Heliox and PowerCharge.

The integrated microgrid, expected to be operational in fall 2025, will be connected to the power grid but designed to operate indefinitely in an islanded mode, according to AlphaStruxure. Once built, it will be able to power not only electrolysis, but also five existing depot buildings and charging electric buses from batteries. As a self-sufficient microgrid, it will operate with or without electricity and can export up to 2 MW of power to the grid, the company says.

A unique feature of this microgrid is a 1 MW hydrogen electrolyzer, which will be powered by local solar energy and used to power fuel cell electric buses and improve the district’s bus rapid transit (BRT) network.

The county’s 2024 fleet transformation plan calls for replacing 100% of nearly 400 fossil-fuel buses with battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell buses, and expanding the overall fleet to about 600 buses by 2035. The county is planning ahead for this microgrid. way to power these zero-emission vehicles by strategically combining vehicle procurement and infrastructure.

“You don’t want to have these vehicles on site and not be able to charge them. It is a balance between the infrastructure we have in place and the fleet we have at the same time,” said Michael Yambrach from the county’s Energy and Sustainable Development Committee.

Montgomery County has formed a public-private partnership with AlphaStruxure to design, build, finance, own and operate the microgrid. The Counted benefited from an AlphaStruxure Energy as a Service contract, under which AlphaStruxure designs, builds, owns and operates the infrastructure, and obtains financing from an investment company.