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    1. Energy Storage

    UC San Diego installs 500-kWh "second life" Battery Energy Storage System on Campus

    March 9, 2023
    Developer Smartville delivered its MOAB energy storage to store solar energy from a 200-kW rooftop solar array. The 500-kWh energy storage helps reduce the facility’s demand on the local utility grid after sunset
    Image credit Smartville
    Smartville Bess 6409eecc81ae2

    The University of California San Diego’s library annex is now utilizing a “second-life” energy storage system including repurposed, recycled batteries.

    UC San Diego contracted developer Smartville to provide its MOAB energy storage to store solar energy from a 200-kW rooftop solar array. The 500-kWh energy storage helps reduce the facility’s demand on the local utility grid after sunset when the solar panels are no longer empowered.

    MOAB repurposes electric vehicle battery packs from various manufacturers into one unified system. The system also can provide the university library annex with 48 hours of emergency backup power, according to the release.

    It is Carlsbad, California-based Smartville’s first such product.

    “This represents our first step in bringing a truly scalable EV battery repurposing solution to market and providing a domestically manufactured energy storage product to meet California’s and the nation’s infrastructure needs,” said Smartville’s CEO and Co-founder Antoni Tong. “To accelerate our next commercial milestone, we are now speaking with venture investors interested in advancing profitable, scalable, low-carbon, low-cost solutions to our sustainable future.”

    Read More on the Energy Transition happening within the University of California campus system

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    UC San Diego is touted as a top research university, citing some $1.64 billion in research funding for its fiscal year 2022. Sixteen Nobel laureates have taught at the campus in various fields.

    Among those research disciplines studied at the university include neuroscience, work on airborne pathogens, climate change and oceanography, among others.

    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.