A collaborative effort to back up Puerto Rico's grid
Caterpillar is flexing its muscles in the microgrid world with the completion of an important project that dates back more than five years.
Post hurricane Maria in 2017, the US Coast Guard wanted reliable back-up power for its Caribbean location. Caterpillar and local Puerto Rico Cat dealer RIMCO worked with their consultant to review the sequence of operations that the US Coast Guard (USCG), would expect if they lost utility connection. The USCG had two different sites they were looking at for hybrid power solutions, the Air Station, and Housing.
Caterpillar analyzed several scenarios of integrated solutions with energy storage and genset assets to support the sites. Nearly six years later, controls and electrical integration for the hybrid solution are now being achieved with Cat switchgear and Microgrid Controller.
The USCG wanted an Independent Power Producer to provide power to those sites for continuous 30 minutes if the local utility went down. Caterpillar provided an optimized hybrid solution to meet the customers needs. Each system entails diesel generators, battery energy storage(s), paralleling switchgear, microgrid controllers and the local dealer provides a long-term service agreements (LTSA).
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