Solar, fuel cell microgrid unveiled in New Mexico
Public and private sector officials from Japan joined New Mexico officials and Mesa del Sol representatives Thursday morning to unveil a microgrid that will power the master-planned development’s Aperture Center.
Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) invested about $10 million to build the microgrid, which will use on-site solar, fuel cell, natural gas and backup battery storage systems to power the 78,000-square-foot building. NEDO has budgeted $22 million for the project. Nine Japanese companies installed the systems and will test them for two years to learn about how a smart grid can function in a real-world setting.
NEDO Chairman Kazuo Furukawa and Yoichi Miyamoto — president of Japan’s largest construction firm, Shimizu Corp. — participated in the ribbon-cutting, which included representatives from all the Japanese companies involved in the project, such as Toshiba, Meidensha Corp., Fuji Electric, Tokyo Gas and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.
Osamu Onodera, chief representative for NEDO’s Silicon Valley office in Santa Clara, Calif., said this is the first microgrid project that NEDO is working on in the U.S. to come online.
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