Enabling California's Resilient Tribal Communities with Mobile Renewable Power
GRID Alternatives
Recipient
Oakland, CA
Recipient Location
7th
Senate District
18th
Assembly District
$908,347
Amount Spent
Active
Project Status
Project Update
All project deployment, measurement, and validation tasks have been completed, and the mobile, renewable backup power units continue to be used by the three participating tribal communities after conclusion of the project. The Final Report was published in March of 2025 and the project closed out shortly after.
The Issue
Many of California's tribal communities are highly impacted by planned and unplanned outages including public safety power shutoff (PSPS) events. Entire communities are often left without power with critical facilities left inoperable or dependent on expensive, noisy, polluting gas-powered generators. Tribal communities are often in remote rural areas, which can experience lower reliability and requires longer travel distances to reach necessary resources.
Project Innovation
This project deployed and gathered community feedback on modular, mobile generation systems to enable California's tribal and disadvantaged communities to provide both critical electric service when the grid is down and for everyday use. The mobile generators consist of expandable battery storage, solar photovoltaic generation, and are able to provide 120V and 240V power. The units can power critical loads while simultaneously charging from solar PV, enabling continual service throughout an extended outage. This mobile critical resilience model will not only provide the functionality to study multiple use cases and advance mobile generation technology throughout California, but it also provides immediate, flexible and scalable relief to families who are suffering the most from the effects of wildfires and grid outages.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
The project will support the development of energy dense, high capacity, mobile renewable generation systems that are capable of powering critical loads, households, and devices without connection to the grid. The project will demonstrate a highly scalable, replicable technology and deployment model which can be used in multiple types of emergencies and all grid outages and PSPS events. The durable, weatherproof system will also be able to support day-to-day operations, including off-grid and remote applications where there is no grid access, in all of California's climate zones
Energy Security
The SAIDI and SAIFI indices of 4,800 and 4, respectively, are estimated based on the number of interruptions and their duration experienced in 2019 by some of the selected demonstration sites. Based on an annual electric load of 7,200 kWh and annual household income of $56,862, the annual cost of sustained interruptions is estimated at $126.53 per customer.
Environmental Sustainability
The ONYX Power Rhino's demonstrated in this project provide backup power that typically comes from polluting fossil fuel generators, enabling participating tribes to sustain critical functions without harmful emissions.
Reliability
The ONYX Rhinos can provide greater reliability and resilience to critical community facilities without installation of transfer switches, allowing for greater flexibility to support critical communication, lighting, refrigeration loads without the full building energy profiles. Household resilience was also improved, specifically for priority community members, such as medically vulnerable, and/or elder households.
Safety
Avoided CO2 emissions for community when using the ONYX Rhino unit compared to portable gasoline generator.
Subrecipients
University of California, Riverside
Match Partners
University of California, Riverside
GRID Alternatives
ONYX POWER
