Iowa State working to build rural Iowa's first 'microgrid' for $12 million in Montezuma
Iowa State University hopes rural Iowa's first microgrid can provide more reliability and help communities recover from natural disasters more quickly.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced last week that a microgrid project led by Iowa State researchers was awarded $9.8 million. The $11.9 million project will allow researchers to provide the Montezuma community with a utility-scale microgrid.
Project leaders say the new microgrid will provide electricity to local communities in and around Montezuma, Poweshiek County offices, small businesses and manufacturers.
"This project will make the entire town of Montezuma the very first utility-scale microgrid in Iowa with the best reliability and resilience," project leader Zhaoyu Wang said. "The Montezuma microgrid will revolutionize and modernize the Montezuma Municipal Light & Power system by integrating smart grid technologies. It will be a model for other rural utilities."
The Montezuma microgrid will be used throughout the city, supplying power to about 1,400 residents. The system will produce 3 megawatts of renewable energy, reduce energy purchases by 3.5 gigawatt hours and reduce transmission costs by 34%.
Leaders expect the project to take about four years to complete.
"The chance to work on this stuff and have the backing and support from of community to do it, it's huge for us," Project co-lead Anne Kimber said. "It's the kind of thing your career is for, so we're super excited."
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What is a microgrid?
A microgrid is a small-scale power system powered by local generators, usually renewable energy sources. Solar panels and a battery storage system will power Montezuma's microgrid.
There are multiple benefits to using microgrids, Wang said. Less distance will be needed to submit electricity, so losses will be reduced. A microgrid also increases reliability and resources, which would lessen the impact of events such as the 2020 derecho, which left more than a million customers without power.
"(Increased reliability) is important because we see more and more extreme incidents in the past few years, like the derecho," Whang said. "When that happens, it's good to have these local resources to continue to provide power supply."
Additionally, Wang said the microgrid in Montezuma will use solar plus energy storage to regulate their peak demand and reduce their energy cost. That is important because it can help stabilize electricity rates to the Montezuma residents, Wang said.
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Microgrid is 'replicable' as well as renewable
Besides providing a renewable power system for Montezuma and the surrounding area, Iowa State has additional plans for the microgrid technology.
A digital copy of the microgrid will exist at Iowa State, other community colleges and for the Meskwaki Nation's accredited electric apprenticeship program. Students can see the real-time operations of the Montezuma microgrid and use it to play out different scenarios.
Montezuma will become the testbed, Kimber said, from which beneficial training programs will be created.
"All of this is for the state of Iowa as well, not just for the local community," Kimber said. "It builds up the energy workforce so we can do this again and learn from this experience. Montezuma becomes the testbed that people can come and see how this works, what it looks like, how local citizens feel about it, and then we train to get good jobs doing this kind of stuff.
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Montezuma supports microgrid vision
Montezuma, a town about 70 miles east of Des Moines, is the county seat for Poweshiek County. The community has been operating on local generation since 1939, according to Kimber
"They're a very smart little community," Kimber said. "They've had a lot of manufacturing there, and because they're the county seat they provide a lot of essential services. Even though it's small, it's a very thriving community."
The team ended up with over 40 letters of support when Kimber and Wang first approached the Montezuma utility.
"We got over 40 letters from the local residents to city, county and state support," Wang said. "That's important; it shows people's strong interest to this new technology."
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Project leads bring years of experience to the table
Wang began researching microgrid technology more than a decade ago, starting as a Ph.D. student at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is now a Northrop Grumman associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Iowa State, affiliated with the university’s Electric Power Research Center.
Kimber is the director of the Electric Power Research Center. She has built microgrids since 2018, including an Iowa State project that served as a power source during the August 2020 derecho.
The project received a $172,000 grant from the Iowa Economic Development Authority in pursuit of disaster response and has led to several projects with the Federal Insurance Mitigation Administration.
"We spend our careers working on power systems," Kimber said. "We've known we can make these technologies work, but we haven't had the chance to demonstrate those in a real-world application in Iowa. That's why this (Montezuma microgrid project) is so gratifying."
Iowa State researchers prevail in heated competition for funding
The application process to secure DOE funds for the Montezuma microgrid project took six months. The full proposal was submitted by the end of July, and then the researchers waited another six months for approval.
The DOE received 370 concept papers before full proposals were submitted. Funding for 17 other projects in the East, Midwest, West and Alaska was also awarded.
"You can imagine how much interest there is not only in Iowa, but across the nation," Wang said. "It was very competitive."
The proposal submitted by Iowa State researchers and Montezuma Municipal Light & Power called for a federal investment of roughly $9.5 million and a local cost-share of $2.4 million from university and Montezuma sources.
Iowa taxpayers will not be called on to fund the project.
Construction is expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2024. It will take six months to complete the engineering and design, after which construction work will begin.
Researchers expect to have the microgrid finished and operational by 2029.
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Celia Brocker is a government, crime, political and education reporter for the Ames Tribune. She can be reached at CBrocker@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Iowa State to build first rural Iowa 'microgrid' in Montezuma
