Power Grid!

By: Izzy Cozier, Sean Burke, Lucy Mogan and Chris Griggy
Information
Making our school a self-reliant microgrid would save us
money in the long run. Also because we would use solar and
natural gas it would reduce emissions. Our microgrid would
produce and save enough energy for San Marin to operate
year round.
Our Plan
● Existing Solar Panels

● Natural Gas Generator

● Building for energy storage

Solar Solar

Natural Gas
Solar
Battery Building
Solar Panel
The already existing solar panels at San Marin will provide the bulk of our power. We
will also add 100 more solar panels on top of the gym, costing about $240,000. In
California, our average kW hours per day is 4.5 hours. San Marin uses about 60,000
kW hours in a month. Using this information we calculated that San Marin needs solar
panels to generate at least 500 kW hours per day. A 500kW Solar Kit needs up to
36,000 square feet of space. Although the 500kW solar panel produces an estimated
56,250 kW hours, it is close to 60,000. These calculations are based off of a month with
at least 5 sun hours per day with the solar array facing South.
Natural Gas Generator
This natural gas generator is a Caterpillar 555 kw G3512. It can generate 555 kw
at anytime the school needs it. San Marin uses 2000 kwh per day but not at a
steady rate. We divided 2000 by 4 to get the maximum amount of 500 kw. We
chose this generator because it meets most of our needs. It is covered and
appropriate for a school setting. It is also portable. It can produce over our need of
500 kw at anytime.
Energy Storage
We would use the Outback Power 2700RE 48
VDC 2228 Ah Battery Bank (At Right). We
calculated that we will need to store 1417 kwh
per day and each of these stores 106.9 kwh.
So we would need 14($28k each) of these to
store 1496.6 kwh. This would cost $412,000 to
purchase the batteries and build a small
building for storage. $392K for batteries, $20k
for the small building.
Underground Wiring
● 69 kV overhead single-circuit transmission line costs about $285,000 per mile -

$1.5 million per mile for a new 69 kV underground line

● 138 kV overhead line costs about $390,000 - $2 million per mile for underground

● We need about 5000 feet of wire for our microgrid

Costs
$1.9 million or $950,000 for the wiring

$412,000 for batteries

$240,000 for solar panels

Unsure on natural gas generator

Thanks For Watching!