Amond World, California Almond Storage Facility, Solar-Powered Microgrid

Burns designed a cold storage facility’s resilient microgrid, enabling the developer to bypass a 2-3 year grid interconnection process and go totally off grid.

Amond World is a state-of-the-art refrigerated cold storage facility within the Madera Airport Industrial Park of California’s San Joaquin Valley. The facility can store 50 million pounds of freshly harvested almonds. Maintaining 24/7 operations is essential to ensure the crop maintains quality and value.

Amond World’s location was chosen for its proximity to the region’s almond producers — storing almond crops quickly is key to retaining the nuts’ water content. Due to the location, however, the local electric utility informed the project’s developer, Origo Investments, that connecting Amond World to necessary power supplies would take two to three years.

Rather than wait, Origo chose to bypass the PG&E interconnection process and partner with Scale Microgrid Solutions to create a 100-percent resilient microgrid. Through a combination of solar and battery storage, Amond World can be powered on renewable energy resources for 12-18 hours a day. As a result, the facility’s carbon emissions are about 40 percent lower than a typical grid-connected cold storage facility.

Burns supported Scale Microgrid Solutions throughout design and construction of the project’s distributed energy resources:

• Two 1,200 kW rooftop solar arrays
• A 2,400-kW | 4,800 kWh battery energy storage system
• Two 1,200-kW natural gas generators
• Central microgrid switchboard and controller

Burns provided electrical and structural engineering services, as well as construction administration for electrical and mechanical systems.

The first phase of the microgrid was designed and built in less than 18 months, allowing Amond World to begin operations several months sooner than if Origo had waited for PG&E interconnection.

The microgrid’s design will ensure Amond World maintains uninterrupted power supply in the event that the project’s distributed energy resources cannot meet power demand. In addition to dispatching on-site generators, Amond World can plug a back-up generator into the microgrid’s switchgear.

Amond World completed construction in 2023.