March 2024: California State Guidelines for Wildfire Mitigation Plans
ZGlobal was retained to provide assistance to the Office of Energy Infrastructure to refine and improve the Wildfire Mitigation Maturity Model and associated Survey. These documents are used to gauge the electric corporations (i.e. utility transmission and distribution companies) maturity and improvements related to wildfire prevention and mitigations. The survey covers many aspects of readiness such as weather/fire forecasting, system monitoring, operating procedures, communications, design, electric operations, public outreach, best practices, lessons learned, etc. The model is a quantitative assessment of the wildfire risk mitigation capabilities and is used to examine how electric corporations propose to continuously improve their plans. ZGlobal’s role in this effort is to provide guidance and refinements to the Maturity Survey and Maturity Model with a focus on system design, operations, maintenance, and protection equipment settings and use.
March 2024: Provide Owner’s Engineering on a 275 MW Co-Located Solar and Energy Storage System in Southern California
ZG was retained to provide owner’s engineering and project development services for three projects located in southern California. The scope of ZG services includes:
Stage 1 – Feasibility
- Conduct a comprehensive analysis to identify any fatal flaws that may impede project success.
- Evaluate the suitability of the land, conduct environmental screenings, and assess grid interconnectivity options.
- Rank potential sites, select appropriate technologies, and estimate production capacity.
- Develop an initial layout, estimate production metrics, and project revenues, and evaluate project finance options.
Stage 2 – Pre-Development
- Begin the process of acquiring necessary land and right-of-way agreements.
- Address zoning requirements, conduct environmental studies, and implement mitigation measures.
- Secure conditional use permits.
- Develop initial project engineering plans, optimize site layout, determine project size, and analyze costs and benefits.
- Design the interconnection, submit applications, conduct system impact and facility studies, and negotiate Transmission Service and Interconnection Agreements along with deliverability analysis.
Stage 3 – Development & Project Engineering
- Refine production models based on detailed engineering parameters.
- Determine optimal project size and analyze hourly production metrics.
- Optimize energy storage, engage in detailed electrical engineering, perform value engineering, and design site plans, substations, and interconnection points.
- Prepare 30%, 60%, and 90% detailed engineering design packages.
- Facilitate project origination and secure long-term offtake contracts. This included quantifying the value of energy, ancillary services, capacity, and Recs, and preparing a bidding package.
- Specify detailed project costs, manage procurement processes, and finalize contracts.
- Conduct comprehensive risk assessments to identify and mitigate potential challenges.
- Coordinate with the Client’s EPC contractor.
- Obtained Utility approval.
Stage 4 – Project Finance Assistance
- Working with our clients and vendors, ZG provides an indicative project capital cost and operating costs for the plant as well as the high voltage to ensure the project adheres to the permitting and interconnection agreements.
- Develop specifications for major equipment and obtain initial project costs.
- Perform initial project finance assumptions analysis and create an associated proforma.
March 2024: Congestion Hedge Strategy Analysis
ZG was retained to design, bid, and participate in the CAISO Congestion Revenue Rights auction for over 300 MW of existing generating resources. ZGlobal’s task is to minimize congestion costs while maximizing the delivery of cost-effective supplies to meet demand. The congestion management process involves the following steps:
- Analyzing the inherent risk between supply and demand nodes.
- Examining historical data to discern congestion patterns.
- Estimating the necessary hedge amount based on the clients’ generation portfolio.
- Compiling a list of source-to-sink node pairs that mitigate risk between supply and demand nodes.
- Submit price-sensitive bids/offers in CAISO’s annual and monthly CRR auctions to hedge congestion risk relative to SP15.
- The selection of these sources is based on statistical and empirical analyses of historical data, encompassing price, revenue, and congestion patterns on the grid.
- The chosen sources are highly correlated with the supply nodes and have a proven track record of generating congestion revenue based on historical data.
- Provide the Client with CRR bids/offers prior to submitting them in the CRR auction for Client review and approval.
- Analyze CRR auction results and verify settlement statements associated with CRRs.
- Pay and receive CAISO CRR funds on the Client’s behalf.
March 2024: Deliverability Analysis
ZG was retained to perform deliverability, net qualifying capacity (NQC), and resource adequacy assessments for an existing 550 MW hydro resource based on the completion of major transmission upgrades. PG&E completed the South of Palermo 115 kV Power Line Reinforcement Project to reinforce the existing 115 kV overhead electric power line system between Palermo, Pease, Bogue, and Rio Oso Substations near the City of Oroville and through a small portion of Marysville in Butte, Yuba, and Sutter Counties in northern California. The proposed project would replace the existing conductor and modify/replace existing lattice steel towers along approximately 59.5 miles of PG&E’s existing Palermo –Rio Oso 115 kV transmission system. Proposed modifications to existing facilities would take place within PG&E’s existing utility corridor.
February 2024: Power System Modeling
ZG was retained by Atlas Solar, LLC to perform several modeling activities prior to signing an Interconnection Agreement with CAISO. The scope of work contains the following design elements:
- Updated Single Line Diagrams to include all major equipment between the DC side of the inverter and the Cielo Azul switching station.
- Design of the medium voltage transformer.
- Update and test GE-PSLF models.
- Design of the main GSU 525kV/69kV/39kV.
- Inverters specifications.
The modeling activities encompass 1,125 MW of PV which is AC coupled with 1125 MW of BESS with a 4-hour duration.
February 2024: Cogen Facility, Yuma, AZ
ZG was selected by Yuma Cogeneration to manage the 24×7 real-time operations of the Yuma Cogeneration facility. The facility began its operation in 1994, with a generating capacity of 63 MW. ZG will begin providing Day-Ahead and Real-Time scheduling services to move the electricity from the facility to California markets.
February 2024: Hydro Pump Storage Engineering and Economic Analysis
ZG was retained to provide hydro pump storage engineering and economic analysis for the Pushmataha County Pumped Storage Project which would include four turbines/generators each with an estimated rated capacity of 300 MW for a total installed capacity of 1,200 MW. The project will use a variable speed pumped hydro configuration which will have an overall cycle efficiency for pumping and generating of approximately 80% and a power factor of 0.9. The project is in Southeast Oklahoma.
January 2024: Vikings Peaker – Scheduling Coordinator and 24×7 Operation Services
ZG has signed an Energy Services Agreement with Averon Energy, one of the largest renewable asset managers in the United States, to provide Day-Ahead and Real-Time Scheduling Coordinator services, CAISO settlements and FERC reporting services, and 24×7 operations, and performance monitoring services for Vikings Peaker, a hybrid 150 MW ac solar and 600 MWh of battery energy storage project. ZG has been working on this project since its inception in 2020 and has completed all development activities on time including permitting, Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) negotiation, deliverability, interconnection and transmission service agreements, pre-engineering, and pre-construction activities.
Vikings Peaker is set to reach commercial operations in two Phases. Phase 1 of the Project, consisting of 600 MWh of Tesla batteries, is currently under testing and commissioning and is expected to achieve COD in April 2024, followed by Phase 2, the 150 MW ac solar, later in 2024.
January 2024: Awarded 3-year Contract with SMUD
ZGlobal was the successful bidder to SMUD RFP for interconnection engineering services and executed a 3-year contract. ZGlobal was the incumbent bidder and was once again selected to provide SMIUD with various services related to generation project development, engineering studies, economic evaluations, etc. To date, ZG has supported SMUD’s development efforts related to the Country Acres 1 and 2 PV/BESS projects, Twin Cities PV/BESS project, Rancho Seco BESS, and the Solano Wind Farm.
December 2023: El Centro BESS 8th Anniversary
The El Centro Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) reached its 8th anniversary of being in service with an excellent operating record on the power grid. In 2015, ZG performed design, engineering, testing, and integration for the BESS interconnected to the IID 92kV transmission system. ZG provided owners with engineering services and assisted IID with the integration of the BESS into its energy management system (EMS). ZG also managed General Electric and Samsung as the equipment providers and project integrators. Once the project reached commercial operation, ZG performed daily O&M services on the new system. The BESS went online in October 2016, it was one of the first battery systems interconnected to the California grid. The project was delivered on time and budget.
IID’s BESS is located adjacent to the El Centro Generating Station within the City of El Centro, California. The BESS is designed as a high-power, low-energy resource with a rating of 20 MWh/33MVA. The BESS consists of the following components:
- 30 separate battery banks made up of 16 strings of battery modules and components, containing 5,760 Samsung lithium-ion battery trays, associated battery management system controls, and monitoring equipment. The equipment is interconnected through a Modbus communication network.
- 30 GE Brilliance inverters rated at 1.25 MVA, up to 45 degrees centigrade, and 1.1 MVA, up to 55 degrees centigrade. The inverters had a rated power factor of +/-0.93. The inverters convert 480 volts AC to 600-800 volts DC when the batteries are charging from IID’s grid and 600-800 volts DC to 480 volts AC when the batteries are discharging energy into IID’s grid.
- 30 GE Prolec1.25 MVA isolation transformers that transform 480 volts AC to 34,500 volts.
- AC GE Mark VI controllers are designed to receive communication from and send communication to IID’s EMS and GE’s SCADA system, translate, and send/receive corresponding commands to and feedback from the Samsung battery management system.
- Eight Trane 30-ton heat pumps and four Trane 25-ton air conditioning units with associated controls and dampers designed to maintain BESS building temperature, humidity, and pressure within operating limits.
- Four-zone fire suppression system designed by Schmidt utilizing 3-M’s NOVEC fire suppression agent, early warning VESDA Laser Plus smoke detectors, and secondary Kidde photoelectric smoke detectors.
- 38.2 MVA, 34.5kV/92kV, Virginia Transformer was used to interconnect the BESS to IID’s 92 kV El Centro Switching Station. 34.5 kV on the BESS side and 92 kV on the IID grid side
- BESS temperature-controlled building that stores the Samsung lithium-ion batteries while the inverters and transformers reside outside the BESS building on housekeeping support pads.
November 2023: Scheduling Coordinator. 24×7 Operation and Optimizing Services for Ocotillo Wells Solar
ZG executed an Energy Services Agreement to provide day-ahead and real-time scheduling coordinator and optimization services for the 50 MWac solar and 200 MWh energy storage Project located in San Diego County. ZG was selected to provide real-time scheduling, Settlements, Optimization, and 24×7 operation services. The project reached commercial operations in November 2023.
October 2023: Interconnection Services
The ZG engineering team continues to provide support to multiple clients across several transmission systems including IID, NVE, SMUD, CAISO, LADWP, PG&E, SCE, WAPA, and LMUD. Additionally, as projects are moving towards their implementation phases, ZG also supports our interconnection clients with material modification requests as final interconnection equipment is selected.
October 2023: Pacific Transmission Expansion Project (PTEP)
ZG submitted the PTEP project on behalf of Shell for the 4th year into the CAISO Transmission Planning Process Open Window. The submission included refreshed project economics and responses to TPP reliability issues. The PTEP has an estimated cost of $1.85 billion and the benefit-to-cost ratio ranges from 1.16 to 1.9.
October 2023: Path 42 Transmission rating study approval
WECC Path 42 upgrade includes the two 230 kV transmission lines interconnecting the IID and SCE systems has been finalized. ZG was retained to perform the supporting studies to increase the rating of WECC Path 42 from 750 MW to 1200 MW. ZG completed the rating studies and submitted them to the WECC Project Review Group (PRG), which includes representatives from the CAISO, SCE, Transco Energy, IID, AZ G&T Coop, and MWD. Additional studies with alternate base cases and sensitivities relating to Path 46, Path 49, Path 59, and the Blythe RAS were performed and submitted to WECC PRG. On October 2023, the PRG approved the rating increase, and the recommendation will be forwarded to WECC staff, the Reliability Assessment Committee (RAC), the WECC Studies Subcommittee (StS), and the RC West to solicit comments and obtain final rating approval.
October 2023 S Line Upgrade
ZG was awarded a contract to perform design, engineering permitting, and detail design to the 20-mile 230kV line. ZG has completed the task and construction is 90 percent completed with Commercial Operation in December 2023. https://youtu.be/8JRksGkndWM.
October 2023: Vega Projects
ZG completed the development of Vega 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 five projects totaling 450 MWac, plus x 4 hrs. energy storage systems. ZG completed the interconnection and the permitting for these hybrid solar and energy storage projects located in Imperial County, California.
July 2023: City of Cerritos
ZG executed an Energy Service Agreement to provide scheduling coordination services beginning August 1st. The City of Cerritos is a suburb within Los Angeles County with a population of 49,630 residents with an estimated peak load of 75MW.
June 2023: Northwest Power Pool (NWPP)
ZG is working with NWPP to conduct a study to quantify the benefits of Southwest Utilities, who are members of the Southwest Reserve Sharing Group, in joining NWPP. NWPP was organized in 1941 to provide professional and management services to its participating organizations such as Bonneville, Alberta ISO, BC Hydro, Portland Electric, PacifiCorp, WAPA, Puget Sound, and other public utilities.
June 2023: San Manuel Band of Mission Indians (SMUA)
ZG was awarded multiple contracts to perform real-time operation and portfolio management services for the SMUA load servings entity located in Highland, CA.
April 2023: Soda Mountain Solar and Energy Storage
In 2021, ZG was selected to manage this 300 MWac solar with a 1200 MWh energy storage system. The project received a federal permit in 2016 and was placed on hold. ZG has since completed the system impact and facility studies for the interconnection of the project to a LADWP-owned 500 kV line. The project is located near the City of Barstow, CA in San Bernardino County. ZG is also working with investors and CDFW to certify the federal permit and finalize the interconnection agreement.
March 2023: Donovan Haytem, LLP
ZG provided expert engineering support in identifying a failed neutral grounding resistor located on a ‘behind the meter’ generating facility at the San Manuel Indian Casino and Resort.
March 2023: Greenleaf Power LLC (Greenleaf)
Is a leading renewable biomass energy provider in North America, its headquarters is in Sacramento, CA. Greenleaf owns and operates 135 MW of dependable biomass generation, fueled by sustainable material. Greenleaf Power collects residual biomass material from agricultural, construction, demolition, landfill, and timber industries and converts that biomass into carbon-neutral electricity for sale to municipal, public power, and investor-owned utilities. ZG was retained to assist in determining the feasibility of repowering its biomass facility and adding energy storage at various locations such as the Desert View Power facility located in Coachella, California, and the Blue Diamond facility located in Lassen County, California. The scope ranges from permitting, interconnection, and engineering to economics and Levelized Cost of Energy over the life cycle. http://www.greenleaf-power.com
March 2023 Holtville BESS
ZG was awarded a contract to perform all detail engineering, permitting, interconnection, and procurement for the new Holtville BESS. This standalone battery energy storage system is located within the City of Holtville, California. The Project is a 30 MW, 120 MWh with commercial operation expected December 2023.
March 2023: New Sun Cascade Development
New Sun is an existing ZG scheduling client. New Sun is developing multiple projects (roughly 600 MW of solar and energy storage) in central Oregon. ZG is working with New Sun on the following items.
- ZG shall perform an optimal assessment to determine the potential revenue from the solar plus energy storage projects (including capacity additions) over a 10-to-15-year period. ZG utilizes a production cost simulation (PLEXOS) that models battery storage parameters, charge/discharge efficiency, and other operational constraints. The functional objective is to determine each project’s optimal dispatch which maximizes energy deliveries taking into consideration forward market prices and other transmission costs if applicable.
- ZG prepared a white paper report with forward projections and drivers of potential market revenues for the forward period. ZG will evaluate potential revenue for each project and location based on historical pricing and forward price outlooks (up to 10 years) for energy. Historical pricing will provide a benchmark given the relevant historical market and operating conditions. Results will include a quantitative and qualitative discussion about the drivers for the revenue as well as how future policies or differing operating conditions may impact those revenues and include quantitative analysis and discussion of optimal dispatch results.
February 2023: MWD
ZG concluded an RFP process on behalf of MWD for the sale of 200 MWh/year on RECS for 10 years for nine (9) small hydro plants (Foothill Feeder, San Dimas, Lake Mathews, Yorba Linda, Diamond Valley, Red Mountain, Venice, Corona, and Temescal).
January 2023: Crayhill Capital Management (Crayhill)
Crayhill is an asset-based private credit manager founded in 2015 and based in New York City. Crayhill is in the process of acquiring the Titan II Project, a 45 MWdc solar project coupled with a 30 MWac/120 MWh energy storage system. The Titan II Project will connect to IID’s 92 kV “R” line. The 43-mile “R” line is a network upgrade required to support the interconnection of the Titan II Project. ZG is working on amending the existing environmental permit. The Titan II generator interconnection agreement was executed and approved by the IID board. ZG provides all engineering, permitting, and project management services for the R-line upgrade.
January 2023: Jacobs Engineering (Sites Reservoir)
ZG continues to support the Sites Reservoir project with economic, interconnection, and market-related support. This will be an ongoing effort for multiple years.
December 2022: Clean Power Alliance of Southern CA
ZG began providing services to the largest CCA in California, to review energy storage PPAs for determining how to calculate availability compared to what is available from the battery equipment data stream.
December 2022: Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD)
Metropolitan is a public agency and a regional water wholesaler. MWD consists of 26 member agencies that purchase some or all their water from MWD. These member agencies and their sub-agencies provide water for 19 million residences in six Southern California counties. ZG has scheduled for MWD its hydro and pump resources. Recently MWD augmented its contract with ZG to provide the following:
- A description of the current and expected Resource Adequacy (RA) landscape over the next five years (2022 through 2026)
- A forecast of system and local RA prices over the next five years (2022 through 2026). ZG considered current and expected changes to the CPUC RA construct, current and expected changes through the CAISO stakeholder processes, and tariff modifications. The comprehensive RA valuation included the following considerations:
- Impact of moving interruptible load (RA credits) to a supply-side resource
- Bi-lateral RA arrangements
- Provides a forecast of REC prices over the next five years (2022 through 2026)
- Provides a description of the renewable energy landscape in relation to participating market sellers and buyers:
- A valuation of the following types of contract options for one-calendar year (2022), three-calendar years (2022 through 2024), and five-calendar years (2022 through 2026) periods:
- Full bundled product: energy, RA, and RECs
- Partial bundled product: energy and RECs (Category 1)
- Standalone product: RECs (Category 3)
- Develop recommendations as to the best strategies used to market the HEPs to maximize their value to clients.
December 2022: Pioneer Community Choice Aggregator
Extended its service area to include El Dorado County. Pioneer CCA now includes Placer and El Dorado Counties which double its size. ZG continues to perform scheduling services. Pioneer served eight jurisdictions through 2022, including the cities and towns of Auburn, Colfax, Loomis, Lincoln, Placerville, and Rocklin and the unincorporated areas of El Dorado and Placer Counties. Pioneer expects the summer peak load to be about 600 MW. ZG continues to provide Pioneer CCA with real-time operation scheduling, settlement, and portfolio management.
October 2022 West of Devers Upgrade
The West of Devers upgrade increases the transmission capacity west of the Devers substation, allowing generation from IID and Arizona to be deliverable into California. The project started construction in 2018. ZG provided a comprehensive economic and reliability analysis to the CPUC. The analysis focused on the cost to benefits from the ratepayer perspective and evaluated other alternatives. The project is completed.
September 2022: Marin Clean Energy (MCE)
Is a Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), load-serving entity with a 1,000 MW peak load. MCE provides electricity service to more than 480,000 customer accounts and more than one million residents and businesses. MCE serves 34 member communities across four (4) Bay Area counties including Contra Costa, Napa, Marin, and Solano. ZG provided MCE with operational services for several years and recently expanded our services to include consultancy. ZG was retained to perform a quantitative and qualitative assessment, using developer data, of curtailment risks arising from economic congestion and over-supply conditions. ZG also developed 20-year forward price curves at each of the projects’ locations, which were used by MCE to assess PPA cost-effectiveness. ZG included qualitative assessments for each of the potential contracts regarding the transmission interconnection and impact on local or system congestion. These analyses provide insight into the driving factors affecting curtailment risks based on a project’s location and effect on future LMPs.
September 2022: Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD)
ZG continues to provide SMUD with both economic and engineering services for multiple PV/BESS projects across the SMUD service area. These projects include the County Acres (344 MW), Solano 4 Wind (90 MW), Rancho Seco BESS (80 MW/320MWh), and Twin Cities Solar/BESS (450 MW/1800 MWh).
August 2022: 174 Power Global
Is wholly owned by Hanwha Energy Corporation. Since its formation in 2017, 174 Power Global has signed nearly 2 gigawatts (GW) of power purchase agreements and has more than 8 GW of additional projects in the development pipeline. 174 Power’s name was inspired by the 174 petawatts (PW) of power the Earth receives from the sun at any moment. 174 projects include Techren Solar/Storage in El Dorado Valley NV (300 MW), Atlas Solar/Storage to Delany-Colorado River 500 kV (2000 MW), and Boulder Solar in Boulder City, NV, 128 MW Solar/Storage.
August 2022: Diamond Generating Corporation (DGC)
A wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corporation with 7800 MW of installed generation assets. DGC retained ZG to assist its management team in assessing transmission investment opportunities within the CAISO Balancing Authority (BA). These opportunities are based on California’s decarbonization efforts, including economic electrification plans, current CPUC integrated resource plans, additional generation projections, compliance with SB 100, and RPS requirements.
June 2022
In response to the CPUC procurement mandates, Cal Energy Resources, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, retained ZGlobal Inc. (ZG) to evaluate the potential development of several hundred MW of geothermal generation in Imperial County, California.
June 2022: Santa Paula Energy Storage
The Santa Paula energy storage project is located within the City of Santa Paula, CA. Since its inception in 2018, ZG managed the environmental permitting and generator interconnection processes. ZG also performed the economic analysis in support of the project. esVolta/Powin acquired the Santa Paula Energy Storage project and completed its construction and commissioning. https://www.esvolta.com/santa-paula.
May 2022: Cuyama Solar Curtailment Issue
ZG provided expert engineering and market support for a generator experiencing excessive curtailments due to issues not identified in the CAISO Cluster Study process.
May 2022: Silicon Valley and Monterey CCAs
ZG was selected to provide portfolio management services to energy projects serving Silicon and Monterey CCA loads. ZG initiated the process to acquire real-time generation PI data. ZG operations developed, trained, and implemented new procedures to manage the first two large solar/energy storage projects. Slate 2 and 3 facilities are owned by Goldman Sachs and Big Beau 1 and 2, are owned by EDF Renewables. This is a significant milestone in strategically enhancing our offerings to manage hybrid resources as the energy sector increasingly moves toward hybrid solar/energy storage resources.
June 24, 2021
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), in its ongoing efforts to ensure grid reliability while meeting the state’s clean energy goals, approved a historic decision that instructs utilities to procure 11,500 megawatts (MW) of new resources, enough generation to energize approximately 2.5 million homes. These resources must come online between the years 2023 and 2026. The added resources are to be procured from “preferred resources” which include distributed energy resources such as energy efficiency and demand response programs, renewable energy generation such as geothermal, and zero-emitting sources such as long-duration energy storage. The decision includes the need for additional 230 kV transmission lines and the interconnection of newly planned geothermal facilities.
FebRUARY 12, 2020
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July 25, 2017
ZGlobal Power Engineering & Energy Solutions Donates $250,000 to Imperial Valley Food Bank
April 17, 2017
November 1, 2016
ZGlobal Announces Completion of Construction of 33MVA Battery Storage System
October 12, 2016
MCE Selects ZGlobal Inc. to Provide Energy Scheduling and Portfolio Optimization Services