Domaine Carneros Takes Control Of Its Energy Future With A Schneider Electric Microgrid

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The Domaine Carneros vineyard in Napa, California, partnered with international electrical options supplier Schneider Electrical to remodel their onsite photo voltaic and generator installations right into a full fledged microgrid. Schneider Electrical invited CleanTechnica up for a take a look at the microgrid, a tour of the power, and a while to speak with their govt staff in regards to the set up.

Disclaimer: Schneider Electrical paid for the writer’s journey and lodging to attend the occasion at Domaine Carneros.

Growing Grid Instability

Napa, California, is positioned simply north of the San Francisco Bay in an space that’s famend for its wine rising. In recent times, it has additionally turn out to be synonymous with large wildfires sweeping throughout the area, inflicting waves of electrical grid outages. In response to the elevated threat of wildfires, utilities have carried out proactive Public Security Energy Shutoffs throughout which they disconnect greater threat sections of the grid to attenuate the potential for a downed energy line beginning a wildfire.

On account of these practices, many areas of California are seeing rather more frequent energy outages. In Southern California the place I reside, we had eight outages within the first few weeks of 2025 alone, with the longest being simply over 24 hours lengthy. For owners, these energy outages are inconvenient, however for companies, they imply a lack of income and probably the lack of important quantities of cash if in-process operations are underway when the ability goes out.

“Deploying a resilient and energy-efficient microgrid solution has been critical to the winery’s operations in light of an increasing number of Public Safety Power Shutoffs and extreme weather events that have posed significant threats to the winemaking industry in California,” mentioned Jana Gerber, North American President of Microgrids for Schneider Electrical. “The system allows the winery to manage energy from its solar array, battery, and generator, providing backup power. All of this is managed through our microgrid controls, which allows for seamless power to be provided to the winery.”

Sustainable Operations

Working Domaine Carneros sustainably has been part of their DNA for many years. Again in 2003, the family-owned vineyard put in what was on the time the most important photo voltaic set up at a vineyard. Their sustainability efforts run the gamut from decreasing the quantity of glass of their bottles by 8% to reusing cardboard containers of their vineyard. In 2020, they partnered with EDF Renewables to integrate their solar installation with a large energy storage installation.

To squeeze as a lot as potential out of their current belongings, they partnered with Schneider Electrical in 2023 to revisit the set up, upgrading it to a totally built-in microgrid. As a part of the improve, they opted to repower their 2003 photo voltaic set up. Upgrading the previous array to new, fashionable panels doubled the output and allowed them to put in a brand new set of recent inverters that performed extra properly with Schneider Electrical’s microgrid gear.

A microgrid is outlined by its capability to island itself from the grid. Within the occasion of a grid outage, it disconnects from the grid, and permits the power to take care of its operations, protecting them operating. At Domaine Carneros, the Schneider Electrical microgrid serves because the clever mind to make all the things play properly. It really works with their diesel generator, photo voltaic arrays, battery financial institution, and the grid to maximise reliability.

It takes into consideration variables just like the climate, forecasted vitality consumption, photo voltaic vitality technology, and the state of cost of the native vitality storage set up. Schneider Electrical’s deep bench of specialists mixed with huge array of options made it the right associate.

Photo voltaic Financial savings

Maximizing the technology from the roof and ground-mount photo voltaic belongings allowed them to cut back the period of time they needed to run their onsite diesel generator. In 2024, the up to date photo voltaic array offered practically 80% of the vineyard’s vitality wants in a yr with greater than common wine manufacturing.

At a value of $2 million USD, they took benefit of the federal ITC credit score and the California’s Self Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) to decrease the upfront value. They paid for the stability, and because of this, notice the complete financial savings from the photo voltaic vitality produced, decreased diesel consumption, and elevated reliability offered by the microgrid. They initially anticipated a 10-year return on funding after incentives, however that has dropped to round 7 years because of greater grid costs for electrical energy.

The vineyard has been saving greater than $100,000 a yr from the system over the previous few years, largely because of the vitality produced by the onsite photo voltaic set up. Along with the tangible financial savings within the type of vitality manufacturing, in addition they get the good thing about resiliency and the flexibility to maintain their operations operating within the occasion of grid outages. That is a lot more durable to quantify, but it surely has a big worth to the corporate, to their workers, and, after all, to all their wine-loving prospects.

Standardized & Scalable

The microgrid set up at Domaine Carneros in Napa, California, is only one instance of how renewables are saving prospects cash and bettering the standard of their operations by protecting the lights on when the grid can’t. In California, the grid is more and more unstable, with no indicators of bettering within the close to future.

However microgrids have traditionally been too costly to be thought of real looking options for small and medium sized companies like family-owned Domaine Carneros. Most microgrids are considered one of one options, which means they’re customized and constructed to fulfill the precise wants of every buyer.

Schneider Electrical goals to vary this and has been working for the previous few years with its specialists to standardize microgrid {hardware} and designs. The corporate plans to supply a core set of 4 commonplace microgrid programs sized to permit them to drive the quantity of manufacturing of these parts up, driving the price down.

They’ve streamlined their manufacturing and suppliers round these 4 particular sizes. Schneider Electrical is among the solely firms on the earth with a full testing, validation, and integration lab for microgrid parts. It exams and simulates grid occasions together with a big selection of situations {hardware} would possibly encounter in the true world. Vetting {hardware} forward of time permits Schneider Electrical to maneuver into the shopper area with confidence, recommending solely {hardware} that the specialists are assured in.

By way of this testing, Schneider Electrical has constructed up a deep bench of modular parts it may well drop into its commonplace system designs, very like you’d drop LEGO blocks into the development of a home. Parts are actually recognized variables, decreasing the price and time wanted to implement considered one of Schneider Electrical’s new commonplace microgrids.

After all, if the shopper does need one thing that’s not provided in considered one of these commonplace system sizes, Schneider is as much as the duty and might simply do this as properly. However it is going to inevitably prolong the timeframe required to take the system from idea to implementation and drive the price up on the similar time.

Total

It was unbelievable to see the work being completed by Schneider Electrical to not solely set up microgrids to resolve buyer issues as we speak, however to essentially drive a brand new commonplace for microgrids to make them extra reasonably priced and extra sensible for extra prospects in additional elements of the world.

I talked with Schneider’s North American President of Microgrids Jana Gerber on the occasion in regards to the prospects for Schneider Electrical’s microgrid enterprise. She acknowledged that whereas their present put in base isn’t massive, they’re projecting a 20 to 25% CAGR for every of the following few years. That’s a wholesome quantity of development in a sector that’s ripe for disruption.

Microgrids and the combination of renewables with vitality storage is one thing we’re seeing in all the things out of your campsite electrical system operating on a conveyable energy station and a small photo voltaic panel all the way in which as much as residential homes, condo buildings, hospitals, authorities amenities, navy bases, and a lot extra.

The long run is electrical, and because of firms like Schneider Electrical and Domaine Carneros, that future is going on now, proper earlier than our very eyes.