A solar/battery project looks to offset hefty electric bills at wastewater facility

Officials at the Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District on Thursday formally unveiled plans to build a solar canopy array and battery energy storage project at the Harmony Grove Village Water Reclamation Facility in Escondido.

The reclamation facility runs up a power bill of about $5,000 each month and the solar-plus-battery project will help offset the wastewater treatment center’s energy costs.

“The solar panel array will provide most of the power for this water treatment system (and) battery backup to keep it running,” said David Drake, president of the board directors of the Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District. “This thing will be making power for this treatment plant.”

The 302-kilowatt solar array with 559 panels atop a canopy will generate electricity to help run the treatment facility that recycles more than 180,000 gallons of wastewater on a daily basis.

The 609 kilowatt-hour battery facility will be built on an adjacent plot of land, store excess electricity the solar array generates and discharge the power after the sun goes down.

The solar-plus-battery project expects to break ground next month and is scheduled to be up and running by next summer.

Clint Baze, the water district’s general manager, said the project will cost about $3.2 million, but a $1.2 million grant from the federal government’s Inflation Reduction Act will reduce the overall price tag.

“After 20 years, it will pay for itself,” Baze said, given the anticipated savings on the treatment plant’s monthly electric bills.

Battery storage facilities are growing at an exponential pace in California, with buildouts across the state nearing 17,000 megawatts. Since 2019, energy storage capacity has surged 2,100%, according to the California Energy Commission.

But a spate of fires at battery facilities, including some in the San Diego area, has raised concerns and generated pushback from some residents who live near existing or proposed sites.

The batteries at the Harmony Grove reclamation facility will use lithium-ion chemistries. Rincon Water officials say they’ve done a hazardous mitigation analysis, and the project will have a fire suppression system built inside it.

“Each battery is isolated so if something happens it diffuses immediately so it doesn’t spread,” said Shawnele Morelos, engineering manager for Rincon.

“We want the neighbors to be engaged,” Baze said. “We want them to be thinking about this. We don’t want to hide anything from them.”

The solar and battery project will be built by SitelogIQ, an energy and facility services company based in Minneapolis, with California offices in Sacramento and Costa Mesa.