Oregon city receiving $940K grant for Solar-Storage Microgrid to serve Emergency functions

Oct. 26, 2022
The planned project will include a 75-kW elevated dual-axis solar power system and a lithium-ion battery system. Stracker Solar is designer on the Ashland microgrid

The city of Ashland, Oregon will have new microgrid serving municipal police and utility functions.

The planned project will include a 75-kW elevated dual-axis solar power system and a lithium-ion battery system. Stracker Solar is designer on the Ashland microgrid.

The project will be funded by a $940,000 award from the Oregon Department of Energy. The award should pay 100 percent of the costs.

The solar and battery microgrid will be built at the Ashland City Service Center where the police and electric departments, vehicle fueling and charging stations are located.

"The City of Ashland is gratified to be part of this forward-thinking project which will add resilience to our city's emergency response”, says Julie Akins, Mayor of Ashland, in the Stracker press release. “We congratulate Stracker Solar on the successful culmination of their hard work to move this forward with the Department of Energy. We look forward to this partnership and future projects with an eye toward sustainable development and resilience."

The solar panels provided by Ashland-based Stracker Solar are expected to produce about 170,000 kWh of electricity per year, supplying the municipal functions for the electric department and Ashland Fiber Network building.

Once operational it also could deliver power for city vehicles even in the event of a grid outage. 

About the Author

EnergyTech Staff

Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

He can be reached at [email protected]

EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.