MRRA seeking partner to develop microgrid at Brunswick Landing

Courtesy / Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority Steve Levesque, executive director of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority in Brunswick, is looking for an experienced partner capable of helping MRRA fully develop its microgrid at the 3,200-acre Brunswick Landing business park.

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Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority is seeking an experienced partner capable of helping it fully develop its microgrid at the 3,200-acre Brunswick Landing business park.

Microgridknowledge.com’s editor Elisa Wood, who has reported on energy issues for more than two decades, recently highlighted Brunswick Landing’s microgrid efforts that are part of its master plan to become a renewable energy center. With more than 100 businesses and organizations now located within the business park at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, electricity usage has more than doubled from 7.5 million kilowatt hours in 2012 to 16 million kWh in 2016. Usage is expected to exceed 18 million kWh this year, Wood reported.

Wood reported that Brunswick Landing buys most of its power, which is Green-E certified, from Constellation New Energy at a fixed price plus capacity charge. Central Maine Power delivers that power to Brunswick Landing via its transmission and distribution grid.

But with an onsite 1 megawatt anaerobic digester generator already at Brunswick Landing and a 1.5 megawatt solar project scheduled to come online this year, Wood reported that MRRA hopes to build on those onsite efforts to create a viable microgrid that could completely power the business park’s needs whenever there might be a power outage on CMP’s grid — a feature that would be attractive to both existing and new businesses.

To get to that point, Wood reported, MRRA needs an experienced microgrid development partner to help with engineering plans, financing and oversight of the microgrid.

“We haven’t defined who the ideal partner or partners would be,” said Thomas Brubaker, MRRA’s public works and utilities manager, likening the status of Brunswick Landing’s microgrid effort to a plane sitting on the tarmac just warming up and getting ready for take-off.