The City of Providence (“City”) is soliciting proposals for an engineering study in support of a solar + battery storage project at The Providence Career & Technical Academy (PCTA), located at 41 Fricker Street in Providence. The City of Providence partnered with the Clean Energy Group (CEG) and American Microgrid Solutions (AMS), through CEG’s Resilient Power Project, to develop a technical/financial feasibility study of a solar + storage system for PCTA in 2019. The City of Providence would like to work with a firm on an engineering study for the solar + storage project, leveraging the initial AMS feasibility study, to support an RFQ. The City anticipates that this scope would be accomplished in two phases. First, the awarded vendor would conduct an onsite “PCTA Facility Assessment” as outlined in Sections 1.2 and 1.3, and would provide the associated deliverables to the City for analysis within a few months from project commencement. The City would then work with its partner AMS to update the microgrid system design from the Feasibility Study. Once that is complete, the awarded vendor would then produce the “RFP Technical Documents” as outlined below, based on information collected in Phase I as well as design elements provided by the City and AMS, with the goal of delivering procurement deliverables in the summer of 2022.
1.2 Primary Scope of Work and Requirements
The City anticipates that the following scope and deliverables would be included in the scope of work:
1. PCTA Facility Assessment:
a. Load Assessment:
i. Work with City stakeholders to identify critical loads and shedable loads, and any loads which require UPS or immediate power restoration
ii. Assess electrical panels @ PCTA to determine how existing electrical infrastructure can support microgrid operation and load management & any barriers
iii. Based on stakeholder prioritization of critical loads, generate “low” and “high” operational profiles, and validate that each has a feasible path to associated panel isolation
iv. Quantify critical load by constructing a “typical year” hourly load profile for each of the operational concepts
v. Assess site for battery feasibility and possible location(s), assuming the largest battery (~4MWh) from the AMS analysis, and including associated switchgear (disconnects, automatic transfer switches, isolation breakers, etc.)
b. Generator Assessment:
i. Assess existing generator to determine how it might be integrated into microgrid
c. Solar Assessment:
i. Assess the feasibility of electrical connection of an estimated 600 kW DC solar installation into the panel set identified for the “low” and “high” scenarios. Limitations on existing breakers, wiring, and/or physical space should be specifically identified, with suggested solutions and a rough cost of implementation
