Fuel Cell Projects

City of Tulare – BioMAT
1875 S. West Street
Tulare, CA

 

OHR Energy was awarded the contract to provide design-build EPC services to FuelCell Energy for the installation of a 2.8 Suresource 3000 fuel cell power plant cogeneration system and anaerobic digester gas conditioning system at the City of Tulare Waste Water Treatment Plant’s Industrial Plant.  The project included providing the infrastructure to link up two biogas sources within the Tulare WWTP, providing increased renewable fuel to the fuel cell.  The main source of biogas comes from the existing domestic plant Bulk Volume Fermenter (“BVF”).  When the BVF is not providing enough biogas to keep the fuel cell running, a biogas conditioning system at the Industrial plant Anaerobic Digesters (“AD”), located 1,800’ to the south of the fuel cell, turns on and provides supplementary gas to the fuel cell.  This project utilizes the BioMAT tariff available through Southern California Edison (“SCE”).  The BioMAT program is a CPUC mandated program where California Investor Owned Utilities (“IOU”) sign a Power Purchase Agreement (“PPA”) to purchase renewable kWhs from distributed generation systems who’s fuel meets certain bioenergy criteria.  The fuel cell produces electricity at 12.47KV and is interconnected to export to the SCE electric grid via a new CAISO metered electrical service.  This system is interconnect via the SCE WDAT interconnection tariff, which allows all kWhs produced to go out to the SCE grid  The exhaust waste heat from the power plant is recovered in an exhaust to hot water heat recovery unit supplied by Cain Industries.  The hot water is then tied into the BVF digester hot water loop, which helps increase biogas output from the BVF.  The project was completed is 2019. 

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Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific
100 Aquarium Way
Long Beach, CA

 

OHR Energy partnered with BioFuels Energy, LLC as the design-build EPC contractor for the installation of Qty (3) 440 kW PureCell fuel cell power plants, for a total of 1,320kW, at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific (“LBAOP”). The system produces power at 480V, and is electrically interconnect with the LBAOP electrical service. The fuel cell system operates in parallel with the existing solar PV systems previously installed at LBAOP, as well as with the SCE electric grid. The high grade hot water (“HGHW”) recovered from the fuel cell system is sent to a 135 Ton World Energy lithium bromine absorption chiller, which pre-chills the aquarium’s chilled water return lines prior to returning to their existing electrical chillers. This provides savings to LBAOP by offsetting kWhs normally consumed by their existing electric chillers to produce that 135 Tons of chilled water. The low grade hot water (“LGHW”)recovered from the fuel cell system is tied into the existing LBAOP condensing boiler system, which provides heat to facility in general, including heating of the aquarium warm water exhibits. Using the LGHW recovered from the fuel cell helps LBAOP reduce their carbon footprint by offsetting natural gas that would otherwise be burned in their condensing boilers. This project was completed in December 2018.

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City of Tulare
1875 S. West Street
Tulare, CA

 

OHR Energy was the successful bidder and awarded the contract to provide design-build EPC services to FuelCell Energy for the installation of a 2.8 Suresource 3000 fuel cell power plant cogeneration system at the City of Tulare Waste Water Treatment Plant’s Industrial Plant.  The fuel cell produces electricity at 12.47KV and is interconnected in parallel to SCE to the existing plant 12.47 KV infrastructure.  This system is interconnect via Rule 21 under the SCE fuel cell net energy metering tariff (“FC-NEM”), which allows any excess kWhs not consumed behind the meter of the Industrial Plant to be net metered out to the SCE grid.  The credits from those kWhs net metered onto the SCE grid are then applied to other SCE accounts owned by the City of Tulare.  The exhaust waste heat from the power plant is recovered in an exhaust to hot water heat recovery unit supplied by Cain Industries.  The hot water is then tied into the existing Industrial plant digester hot water loop, which helps reduce the City of Tulare’s carbon footprint by offsetting natural gas that would otherwise be burned in their existing hot water boilers.  Our heat recovery loop puts those boilers on standby, such that they supply only the additional heat needed above what is recovered and provided by the fuel cell.  The project was completed is 2018. 

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Sheraton Hotel – Harbor Island Marina Tower
1380 Harbor Island Dr.
San Diego, CA

 

Back in 2005, OHR Energy installed a 1MW FuelCell Energy cogeneration system at the Sheraton Hotel Marina Tower, located on Harbor Island in San Diego.  When the contract for that project expired in 2015, OHR worked with BioFuels Energy, LLC and Doosan Fuel Cell America to develop a new project at the same location, utilizing much of the existing infrastructure to install Qty (2) 420kW PureCell power plants, totaling 840kW.  OHR Energy was responsible for securing approval from the Port of San Diego, who owns the land that the Sheraton Hotel is built on, as well as all permits from the City of San Diego and SDG&E.  The project reused a portion of the existing hot water piping infrastructure to recover and utilize the low grade hot water (“LGHW”) from the fuel cell to completely offset all natural gas being used to heat the hotel pool.  The project also included the installation of a new hot water loop to recover the energy from each power plant’s high grade hot water system (“HGHW”) to offset a majority of the hotel’s hot water demand, further offsetting the natural gas consumption of the hotel boilers.  Offsetting the natural gas that would otherwise be burned in both the pool heater and hotel hot water boiler helps the Sheraton meet their corporate goal to reduce their carbon footprint.  A portion of the energy recovered in the HGHW system is sent to a new 50 Ton World Energy lithium bromine absorption chiller, which was design and installed by OHR Energy.  The 50RT of chilled water is tied into the existing hotel chilled water loop, which provides savings to the Sheraton Hotel by offsetting chilled water normally produced by their existing electric chillers.  This project was completed in 2017.

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Alameda County Santa Rita Jail
5325 Broder Blvd.
Dublin, CA

 

OHR Energy was hired by FuelCell Energy to provide design-build EPC services for the installation of a 1.4MW Suresource 1500 fuel cell power plant cogeneration system at the County of Alameda Santa Rita Jail.  The new fuel cell was installed in an area that previously housed a previous 1MW fuel cell system, therefore our design incorporated reusing as much of the existing infrastructure as possible.  The fuel cell produces electricity at 12KV and is interconnected in parallel with the existing solar PV system and battery storage system, as well as the PG&E electric grid.  The exhaust waste heat from the power plant is recovered in an exhaust to hot water heat recovery unit supplied by Cain Industries.  The hot water is then tied into the existing jail hot water loop, which provides space heating and domestic hot water to the jail.  This waste heat recovered hot water offsets and reduces the jail’s natural gas consumption by putting the existing hot water boilers on standby, further reducing the County of Alameda’s carbon footprint.   This project was completed in 2016. 

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City of Riverside Water Quality Control Plant
5950 Acorn Dr.
Riverside, CA

 

OHR Energy was awarded a $2.5MM grant from the South Coast Air Quality District for the installation of a renewable 1.4MW Suresource 1500 FuelCell Energy power plant & associated anaerobic digester gas upgrading system at the City of Riverside Water Quality Control Plant (“WQCP”).  The fuel cell’s fuel source is the anaerobic digester gas from the City of Riverside WQCP digesters, which was currently being flared and burned in an internal combustion engine generator set, which has since been decommissioned.  The exhaust waste heat from the power plant is recovered in an exhaust to hot water heat recovery unit supplied by Cain Industries.  The hot water is tied into the existing plant digester hot water loop.  This waste heat recovered hot water offsets and reduces the WQCP’s natural gas consumption by putting the existing hot water boilers on standby, further reducing the City of Riverside’s carbon footprint.  The power plant produces electricity at 12KV, and is interconnected in parallel with the City of Riverside Electric Public Utility (“RPU”).  This project was completed in 2016.

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University of California, Irvine Medical Center
101 The City Drive South
Orange, CA

 

OHR Energy was hired by FuelCell Energy to provide design-build EPC services for the installation of a 1.4MW Suresource 1500 fuel cell power plant cogeneration system at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center (“UCIMC”).  The power plant produces electricity at 12KV and is interconnected in parallel with the SCE electric grid.  The electrical interconnection on this project was unique in that the system was interconnected to the UCIMC 12KV loop, which is owned and operated by SCE.  This resulted in several different requirements that differ from a standard behind the meter Rule 21 Electrical Interconnection.  The exhaust waste heat from the fuel cell is recovered in a 220RT Broad direct exhaust fired lithium bromine absorption chiller.  The absorption chiller which provides additional savings to the medical center by offsetting 220RT of chilled water originally produced by their existing electric chillers.  This project was completed in 2015. 

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California State University, San Marcos
333 Twin Oaks Valley Rd.
San Marcos, CA

 

OHR Energy partnered with BioFuels Energy, LLC as the design-build EPC contractor for the installation of Qty (2) 400 kW PureCell fuel cell power plants, for a total of 800kW, at California State University San Marcos (“CSUSM”).  The system produces power at 480V and is electrically interconnected with the CSUSM grid, with the fuel cell system operating in parallel with the SDG&E electric grid.  The high grade hot water recovered from the fuel cell system is used to offset natural gas usage in the CSUSM central plant hot water boilers during the winter months (November – May), which contributes to the University’s goal to reduce its carbon footprint.  When the weather in San Marcos heats up during the summer months (June – October), the hot water is redirected to a 90 Ton World Energy lithium bromine absorption chiller, which provides savings to CSUSM by offsetting chilled water normally produced by their existing electric chillers.  This project was completed in 2015.

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