Case Studies

When you’re planning a 7,500-seat arena in an area with high electricity rates and a lot of sunshine, it’s a good idea to start thinking about solar panels and storage systems.

That’s exactly what the team behind Frontwave Arena did when planning their multipurpose entertainment venue in the City of Oceanside, San Diego County. The arena’s specific location in El Corazon, a 465-acre district dedicated to habitat and recreation, led to another goal: Making the building as sustainable as possible.

A large rooftop solar array paired with a sizable energy storage system now allows Frontwave Arena to maximize the economic value of solar and operate sustainably — all while ensuring a great fan experience for everyone attending San Diego Sockers and Clippers home games, as well as concerts and community events.

Mt. Hood Town Hall is a community gathering place in the Upper Hood River Valley. It acts as a recycling center, community meals distribution hub, middle-school classroom, a venue for special public events, and a relief center during emergencies. Originally built in 1914 and owned by Hood River County, the facility is a registered historic building.

Due to its geography, Hood River County faces unique outage-inducing events including wildfires, ice storms, earthquakes, high temperatures, and high winds. Much attention was drawn to this in 2018, when the Hood River County Energy Plan was adopted, making energy resilience a top priority.

Fast forward to September 2023: With a specific site for a microgrid in mind and a list of resiliency goals in hand, Hood River County received a grant from the Oregon Department of Energy’s Community Renewable Energy Grant Program to fully fund a microgrid feasibility study for the proposed project.

The Oregon Military Department (OMD) wanted to bolster the resiliency of its Col. James W. Nesmith Readiness Center. The facility already had a 255 kW PV array and a 150 kW diesel generator, but in the event of an earthquake or long-duration grid power outage, the PV system would be inoperable, leaving just the generator’s 1,000-gallon tank. OMD wanted an energy storage system (ESS) to optimize the existing on-site assets and boost its backup power capacity to 14 days, as well as provide a blueprint for installations at other facilities.

Retrofitting a long-duration ESS to a grid-tied PV system at a facility this size that also includes a generator was a considerable challenge. The installer, Sunlight Solar, contacted Mayfield Renewables in 2018, and asked us to conduct the feasibility study and take on the design.