New Jersey’s oldest and largest publicly owned utility, Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G), and the Hopewell Valley Regional School District recently collaborated to install a first-of-its-kind solar+storage system for the district’s high school. The system is part of  PSE&G’s Solar 4 All® Program and is designed to integrate solar with other technologies to reduce the impact that solar has on the grid and/or demonstrate how solar can help reliability and grid resiliency for critical facilities during prolonged power outages.

This solar+storage pilot project at Hopewell Valley Central High School combines an 876 kilowatt-dc rooftop solar and parking lot solar canopy system with large lithium ion batteries.

During normal operation, the system provides solar power directly to the PSE&G electric grid and also charges the batteries, which will allow the system to participate in the PJM Frequency Regulation Market. In the event of a power outage, the solar+storage system allows the school to function as a warming/cooling station for the community while also powering emergency lighting and food refrigeration in the building.

For PSE&G, it’s an opportunity to see, in real time, how this battery project could impact grid reliability and renewable energy integration, while also exploring additional uses such as frequency regulation. The project allows PSE&G to assess how it can control the battery, test use cases for storage and solar+storage and compile information about how the battery works.

“The Hopewell Valley Central High School project demonstrates how flexible solar can be when it is used with storage technology to help maintain grid reliability and provide critical power,” said Andy Powers, Solar 4 All program manager for PSE&G.

The Hopewell Valley Central High School solar+storage system is one of several similar projects under the Solar 4 All Program. Since Superstorm Sandy left millions of New Jersey residents without power in 2012, regulators have been pushing the state’s utilities to invest in resilient power solutions. PSE&G’s Solar 4 All program is promoting the development of 158 megawatts of grid connected solar capacity using rooftops, parking lots, utility poles and landfills/brownfields.