Here is one way to make housing affordable: The utility Rocky Mountain Power and the real estate developer Wasatch Group are planning a new housing estate that will be powered by solar and a virtual mega battery.
The new Soleil Lofts housing estate will consist of more than 600 rental apartments. It is located in Herriman, a suburb of Salt Lake City in Utah. The flats will only be supplied with solar power, most of which will come from their own roof. In addition, each individual apartment has a home storage unit. In this way, the solar power can be stored for when the residents need it. Due to the continuing strong influx into the region, the area around Salt Lake City is increasingly struggling with poor air quality.
Battery network stores 12.6 megawatt hours
Since the housing estate produces only clean electricity, which is also used for heating and mobility, there are no local emissions. The home storage units are networked with the photovoltaic systems to form a virtual power plant, thus relieving the power grid at peak times. In addition to the generating capacity of five megawatts from the solar PV, there is also the large-scale virtual battery from Sonnen with 12.6 megawatt.
The first tenants are to move in starting in September, the last flats are to be completed by the end of 2020. The residents thus benefit from lower energy costs than with a fossil fuels-based energy supply. The new residents will also be able to charge their EVs for free for one year, Sonnen says. (nhp/mfo)
The videos from the 2019 pv Guided Tours at The smarter E Europe (Intersolar Europe, ees Europe, Power2Drive, EM-Power) in Munich are now online.
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