Patrick Chavez, Director of Utilities and Plant Operations, shows the ice banks of the NMSU cold water facility, which makes ice at night and then melts it during the day to cool buildings across campus. (Courtesy of NMSU)
Copyright © 2021
LAS CRUCES – New Mexico State University will soon get half of its total power from a new 3-megawatt solar array that El Paso Electric Co. built on the NMSU campus in Las Cruces.
It is scheduled to go online in November with 10,000 solar panels and a 1 MW battery system that can provide up to four hours of emergency power at sunset.
The array is prominently displayed on a previously undeveloped 29-acre lot in NMSU’s Arrowhead Park, which the university is developing into an industrial hub on the south side of the campus. It is between Interstates 10 and 25 – a strategic location deliberately chosen to give passing motorists a sweeping view of the facility, said Wayne Savage, Executive Director of Arrowhead.
“It’s a highly visible site that is meant to get attention,” Savage told the Journal. “NMSU and EPE want to be known and viewed as pioneers in network transformation.”
The solar array is the latest in a new, broader university vision to transform the NMSU campus into a model for low-carbon, energy-efficient technologies to both power university facilities while providing practical learning opportunities for students, faculty and community professionals and policy makers. The university plans to transform its campus into a “living laboratory” for energy research and development to help New Mexico and other states transition from fossil fuels to carbon-free resources, said NMSU Chancellor Dan Arvizu.
“Other universities like Stanford do similar things, but our concept of using the university system as a ‘living laboratory’ is unique in our region,” said Arvizu. “We can make significant contributions to help the state move from ambitious goals to strategy implementation in order to achieve its goals.”
As the former director of the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, Arvizu leads the mission of making the NMSU a driving force in the energy transition not only in New Mexico but also at the national level. In September the White House appointed him to the National Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, which makes recommendations on science, technology and innovation policy to the President.
Arvizu also leads a new “Energy Cabinet” at NMSU, which includes university deans and representatives from NREL and Sandia National Laboratories who meet monthly to support energy strategies in the public and private sectors.
The NMSU is now leading two initiatives at the state level. One, funded by the U.S. Economic Development Agency, aims to help communities around New Mexico harness the state’s burgeoning green energy economy to fuel business development and job creation. The other, funded by the DOE, is working to build a “clean energy cluster” of startup companies through the NMSU’s Arrowhead Center, which manages all of the university’s entrepreneurship and technology transfer programs.
The university is now seeking federal funding for further initiatives. The NMSU’s nationwide system of agricultural science centers would be turned into hands-on demonstration sites for methods of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in agribusiness.
Another would convert a now-disused solar demonstration site that the DOE operated at NMSU in the 1980s into a modern clean energy technology laboratory for research, technology commercialization, and human resource development, said Patricia Sullivan, Engineering Associate Dean and Director of the Chancellors Strategic Initiative office.
“It’s an outdoor test facility with structures already in place and wired,” Sullivan told the Journal. “We have to upgrade it and convert it for modern research.”
This facility could become a tiny microgrid to study new technology and controls, said Olga Lavrova, associate professor of electrical engineering.
Olga Lavrova, associate professor for electrical engineering, explains the server system in the NMSU’s Power Systems Lab, which collects real-time data from local and regional networks and saves it for processing and analysis. (Courtesy of NMSU)
Under Lavrova, the engineering school is already conducting extensive research on microgrids, intelligent energy technology, solar generation, battery storage and other things in its own Power Systems Lab, which is collecting real-time data from El Paso Electric and regional networks, as well as campus power systems used by the utility companies and the plant operations managed by the NMSU. The laboratory monitors and stores the data on its own servers for processing and analysis.
There’s even a simulated microgrid in the lab that emulates power and consumption in a simulated, smartly wired neighborhood, with a supercomputer to process and analyze the data.
The real energy gem of the university, however, is the utilities and plant operations, which directly supply 52% of the NMSU’s electricity, as well as all of the heating and cooling on campus. Over the past ten years, campus managers have developed a unique real-time monitoring and control network to maximize energy efficiency, reduce consumption and costs immensely, while significantly reducing CO2 emissions. The entire system has become a living laboratory for university research and teaching, said Patrick Chavez, director of utilities and factory operations.
Now, the newly built solar array in Arrowhead Park will add a whole new dimension to NMSU’s power supply and provide research and learning opportunities when it goes online next month.
EPE will own, manage and maintain the system under a special collective agreement with NMSU that has been approved by state regulators. The $ 8 million facility will generate all of the campus power not supplied by utility and factory operations, while also allowing NMSU students and faculty to do things like dust control and seamless operational shifting of power between the solar panels and the Study backup battery system.
It’s educational for EPE too, said utility engineer Ruben Quiroga.
“It is our first in-house battery-powered solar system,” said Quiroga. “It’s a learning experience for both sides.”
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