Case Studies

Problem Statement:  A large 10 MW factory in New Mexico had decided to make clean energy investments to meet Science Based Targets (net zero energy consumption) but with no changes to factory operations The company didn’t know what investments to make nor costs and benefits thereof

Solution: LovEnergy conducted a techno-economic feasibility study to assess several potential clean energy investments including solar, wind and energy storage. The study evaluated hourly loads over a 10 year period to understand the energy needs to be offset by the clean investments. Subsequently the capacity, costs and benefits of solar and wind requirements were determined and potential interconnection issues identified. Boundary conditions such as target operation date and land availability were factored. 

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Results: The study determined none of the scenarios analyzed hadbenefits exceed the costs, yet the net zero goal could be achieved but unlikely to meet the desired target operational date due to current interconnection queue challenges.

47 MW of Wind energy met the net zero goal and had the best of the worst BCR (Benefit Cost Ratio) of 0.72, however there isn't sufficient land available at the site. 70 MW of Solar PV also meets the net zero goal but requires LI-ION battery storage of 33 MW and 348 MWh to obtain a better BCR of 0.67 than 0.46 without storage.

Both negative and positive impacts to transmission lines were identified that could result in the company having to pay towards grid upgrades despite the positive impact to some lines.