Alphastruxure discusses Maryland project launch, expansion opportunities
Alphastruxure is closely eyeing California and Massachusetts following its successful mobilization of the Montgomery County on-site electric bus charging, hydrogen, solar and storage project, internally known as Montgomery County, Maryland’s Equipment Maintenance and Transit Operation Center (EMTOC).
The 5 MWdc rooftop and canopy solar, 2 MW and 7.35 MWh battery energy storage, and up to 4.5 MW charging microgrid is projected to break ground on June 14.
The developer is looking to complete the project in the 2H25.
The lead engineer for the project, Maeve Lawniczak, explained Alphastruxure’s recent Application for CPCN Exemption, filed on February 28, was a standard siting and permitting procedure for microgrids in Maryland.
“Because this is such a large solar array, we needed to go through this CPCN process,” Lawniczak said. “Since we will not be pushing net-metering anymore than the 2 MW limit that exists today, we were able to go through the exemption route with the CPCN, and that was approved three weeks ago.”
The exemption was approved for the project to proceed this week, which is considered part of Maryland’s microgrid interconnection and utility process.
Alphastruxure is a joint venture of Schneider Electric and The Carlyle Group.
Expansion
EMTOC will also be utilizing Alphastruxure’s new digital platform, Integrate, where the developer’s network operating center monitors the project.
Alphastruxure’s first fleet charging microgrid in Montgomery County, also known as the Brookville project, was the first project to use it.
The product is built on top of Schneider Electric’s digital monitoring platform, just with a microgrid controller.
Schneider’s robust government relations team is looking toward Massachusetts for Alphastruxure expansion, but they are primarily eyeing California, as the developer’s Energy as a Service (EaaS), CapEx microgrid business model is more favorable in states that enable on-site, behind-the-meter generation.
“Everybody wanted a microgrid when I worked at Schneider. But when you showed them kind of the upfront costs of the system, that always tended to be the showstopper,” Lawniczak said. “That was one of the reasons Schneider pursued this partnership with Carlyle—to make microgrids a little more accessible to more people.”
*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.
NPM US (New Project Media) is a leading data, intelligence and events company dedicated to providing origination led coverage of the renewable energy market for the development, finance, advisory & corporate community. Download our new mobile app.