CSUDH is now participating in the Clean Energy Optimization Pilot, a first-of-its-kind collaboration between SCE and the University of California and California State University on performance-based greenhouse gas reduction. The energy storage solution will enable Seeton to adjust the load from SCE to the batteries to lower demand and costs during the peak 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. time period. Importantly, during the summer 2020 heat wave and rolling brownouts, intelligent energy storage enabled the university to automatically participate in the California Public Utility Commission’s DR program by reducing the university’s load by a megawatt for 4 hours as requested. And by adjusting the advanced controls, Seeton was able add another 500 kW to 800 kW above and beyond this. 

The Athena platform continually learns and adapts over time, performing thousands of calculations, forecasting simulations, and split-second decisions to optimize battery use. By monitoring CSUDH’s load curve, the solution can determine how much load it can discharge while still being able to manage demand peaks. Visual dashboards have also been crucial in enabling Seeton to demonstrate the benefits of the Stem energy storage system to university officials, other campuses, and visitors from around the world, including a Chinese delegation that toured the CSUDH facility. 

The solution has also helped Seeton manage other sustainability project challenges. For example, when the campus converted from gas to electric chillers, SCE informed Seeton that his campus could not exceed 3 MW of demand; otherwise, the sensors that monitor electric usage would be overloaded and could melt, requiring costly and time-consuming repairs. By taking advantage of the batteries to shift demand, Seeton was able to stay below 3 MW throughout the conversion, even when the new chillers were being commissioned and were sometimes over-run or out of sequence.  

Without energy storage, Seeton would have had to create a much more complicated and expensive transition plan. Instead, he simply checked the Athena dashboard regularly and set thresholds, so he would receive alerts if the load was too high. He could then adjust the temperature of the chillers, turn down some fans, or take other appropriate action so he could remain under the 3 MW cap. 

Seeton offered this advice to other university campuses: “Just do it. You can’t just sit back and wait for the money for large projects. I did a lot of small things in the beginning – adding energy efficiency to one classroom at a time if that was all the money I had – and this created a track record of success that led to bigger projects, such as a new energy storage system. Just be sure to measure everything. Early on I adopted metering and analytics because you can’t fix what you can’t measure, and you can’t demonstrate success without data.”