New Tesla Batteries

Some people think that the large Tesla battery unit installed at the city of Fortuna’s water booster station on Kenmar Road near South Fortuna Boulevard is going to be a car-charging location, but that is not the case.

The Tesla unit located there is one of three that will serve as a money-saving backup battery system at Fortuna water and wastewater facilities.

One of two more Tesla backup battery units had already been installed at the city of Fortuna’s wastewater treatment plant, and the other is in the design stage, to be installed at the city’s domestic water wells just off Eel River Drive.

Once all three are installed and operational, the city anticipates saving more than $115,000 annually in electricity costs, or nearly $1.4 million over a 10year period.

“Each of the three systems is being installed at city-operated water and wastewater facilities,” said Fortuna City Engineer Brendan Byrd, “which are critical facilities to maintain for public health purposes and ones that require a large amount of energy from the grid to operate.”

Not only will the backup battery systems assist with the operations of city facilities during an outage, but the plan is to utilize the battery systems during daily peak energy time periods (from 4 to 9 p.m.)

“During the peak energy times, electricity costs are higher,” Byrd said. “Once a backup battery is fully charged, it can be used to operate the city facilities during the peak hours and thus avoiding paying the higher energy costs.”

Once the peak energy time period is over, the facilities would switch back to using electricity and the Tesla battery system would recharge overnight.

“For Fortuna, each of the battery installations is anticipated to result in tens of thousands of dollars in electrical cost savings per year, simply from shifting the time of use and electrical rate from peak to off -peak,” Byrd said.

The installation of the three Tesla backup battery systems is expected to cost nearly $3 million, with none of that cost a city responsibility. The only incremental cost to the city will be to provide high-speed internet service to the battery units for operation, maintenance, and reporting.

“The opportunity to install these systems comes from the Pacifi c Gas & Electric Co.’s Self Generation Incentive Program,” Byrd said. The units themselves were delivered by Tesla, and the PG&E program is completely covering the cost of installation.

Photo credit: Mary Bullwinkel

Submitted by Mary Bullwinkel Reprinted with permission from Times-Standard times-standard.com