Rincon San Luiseño Band of Mission Indians – 2019 Project

Project Overview

Tribe/Awardee
Rincon San Luiseño Band of Mission Indians

Location
Valley Center, CA

Project Title
Rincon Solar Microgrids Project

Type of Application
Deployment

DOE Grant Number
DE-IE0000125

Project Amounts
DOE: $3,000,000
Awardee: $4,267,032
Total: $7,267,032

Project Status
See project status

Project Period of Performance
Start: 9/1/2019
End: 8/31/2022

NOTE: Project pages are being updated regularly to reflect changes, if any; however, some of the information may be dated.

Summary

The Rincon San Luiseño Band of Mission Indians (Rincon Band) will develop two separate sustainable energy microgrids, both centrally located on the Rincon Indian Reservation, and each capable of autonomous operation. The two microgrids will integrate approximately 3,100 kilowatts (kW) of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity with 2,450 kW of battery energy storage capacity and 2,920 kW of diesel-fueled standby generation to maintain resilient energy service and displace grid-delivered power.

The microgrids will provide resilient energy for a large portion of the Rincon community’s essential facilities and services, including fire protection, emergency management, public sheltering, fuel supplies, and water and wastewater treatment systems. The project is expected to save nearly $500,000 per year and more than $9.2 million over 25 years.

Project Description

Background

The Rincon Band is a federally recognized Indian Tribe that occupies a 4,665-acre Reservation in northeastern San Diego County within the San Luis Rey Watershed. Established in 1875, the Rincon Band is one of six federally recognized Southern California Tribes comprised of Luiseño people, which are considered one of the groups of the California Mission Indians. 
 
The Rincon Reservation faces multiple hazards that threaten the safety of the community and its most vital assets; earthquakes, floods, and increasing wildfire risks and “red flag warnings” lead to de-energization of utility transmission and distribution lines. Most recently, wildfire risks led to a series of long-duration power outages that affected utility circuits serving the Rincon community for more than 90 cumulative hours in November 2018. With the recent history of utility-related fires in California, utilities are being required by the California Public Utilities Commission to bolster their wildfire mitigation policies and procedures. In response, the local utility recently issued its wildfire mitigation plan, including public safety power shutoff protocols. Consequently, the Rincon Band anticipates increasing risk of outages and other wildfire threats.
 
The Rincon Band has established a series of strategic energy and resiliency goals, addressing the Band’s energy sovereignty, self-sufficiency, sustainability, resiliency, and affordability. The Rincon Strategic Energy and Resiliency Plan describes a series of planning objectives that guide the Band’s progress toward reliance on renewable energy for 80% of its requirements; half of this renewable energy is to be from sources located on the Rincon Reservation. Toward these goals, several years ago the Band invested $13 million in a 1-MW ground-mounted solar PV system. Recently, the Rincon Band invested in lighting retrofits, replacing more than 10,000 light fixtures with energy-efficient lamps. The Rincon Band has also initiated efforts toward potentially establishing a tribal utility to further support its sovereignty and self-sufficiency goals.

Project Objectives

Project objectives focus on deploying systems to mitigate the risks of utility outages affecting the Rincon Band’s ability to maintain essential services for the health, safety, and welfare of Rincon tribal members, other residents, workers, and guests on the Rincon Indian Reservation. In addition to powering microgrid operations, the project is expected to generate 4,401 MWh of electricity annually in the first year, reduce the Band’s dependence on grid-supplied energy, and save more than $9 million in energy costs over the 25-year project lifetime.

The primary goal of the Rincon Solar Microgrids Project is to deploy resilient energy systems to assure sustainable and affordable energy supplies for facilities and services that are essential to the health, safety, and welfare of the Rincon Band. Secondary goals include supporting tribal sovereignty and self-sufficiency by enabling the Rincon Band to exercise control over the way energy is produced and managed on the Rincon Reservation, and reducing dependence on external energy supplies from the local utility and various fuel suppliers.

These goals were established by the Rincon Band in its Strategic Energy and Resiliency Plan, and they address critical vulnerabilities identified in the Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan. Further, the project integrally supports the Band’s emergency procedures by improving the energy resiliency of critical facilities identified in the Rincon Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan and the resort’s Emergency Procedures Plan.

Key design objectives focus on the systems’ ability to:

  • Assure sufficient solar generation and energy management capabilities to enable autonomous daytime operation with minimal reliance on diesel generation during typical load and solar generation conditions
  • Enable scalability of resilient, sustainable, and affordable energy sources through ongoing integration of additional renewable generation and energy storage capacity in the future.

Project Scope

The project includes two separate sustainable energy microgrids, both centrally located on the Rincon Indian Reservation, and each capable of autonomous operation. The two microgrids will integrate approximately 3,100 kW of solar PV capacity with 2,450 kW of battery energy storage capacity and 2,920 kW of diesel-fueled standby generation (2,420 kW existing and 500 kW new) to maintain resilient energy service and displace grid-delivered power.

The microgrids will provide resilient energy for a large portion of the Rincon community’s essential facilities and services, including fire protection, emergency management, public sheltering, fuel supplies, and water and wastewater treatment systems—whose operability during emergencies is vital for the entire Reservation. Projected savings are nearly $500,000 annually, or more than $9.2 million over 25 years.

Each microgrid will be configured as follows:

  1. Fire Station Microgrid – 100 kW PV, 420 kW diesel, 50 kW/50 kWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) to support essential services such as fire protection, rescue, and 911 emergency dispatch.
  2. Resort-Area Microgrid – 3,000 kW PV, 2,500 kW diesel, 2,400 kW/600 kWh BESS to support essential services such as emergency public shelter, emergency operations center, and emergency response and evacuation staging areas; waste water treatment plant; food, essentials, and fuel for emergency vehicles; and standby generators at water pumping stations.

Project Location

The Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians is a federally recognized Indian Tribe that occupies a 4,665-acre Reservation in northeastern San Diego County within the San Luis Rey Watershed in California. The Band will develop two separate sustainable energy microgrids, both centrally located on the Rincon Indian Reservation, and each capable of autonomous operation.

Project Status

The project was competitively selected under the Office of Indian Energy’s Fiscal Year 2019 funding opportunity announcement “Energy Infrastructure Deployment on Tribal Lands - 2019” (DE-FOA-0002032) and started in September 2019.

The project status reports provide more information.