As shown in Attachments A, B, and C, The University of Akron (UA, or “the University”) consumes more than 80,000,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year and has an average monthly peak demand of approximately 12,670 megawatts (MW). The University receives electric distribution service from FirstEnergy’s (FE) Ohio Edison (OE) operating company and takes service at 23,000 Volts on South Forge Street in Akron, Ohio. The University is billed on OE’s General Service Primary (GP) rate schedule through two GP meters bundled into a single account. With distribution, transmission, and generation costs continuing to rise, the University seeks proposals from qualified providers to design, engineer, install, finance, and operate/maintain an on-site microgrid solution to manage these rising costs. An ideal solution would target capacity coincident peak management, time-of-use arbitrage, PJM market participation, flattening of monthly peak billed demand, and sustainability initiatives. Although the University is presently ineligible to enroll in FirstEnergy’s Rider NMB Transmission Pilot Program due to a prior enrollment that ended a few years ago, the University plans to pursue Network Service Peak Load (NSPL) based billing for transmission in the future if the pilot program or NSPL based billing is expanded following the end of FE’s Fourth Electric Security Plan in May 2029. For the purposes of this RFP, a “microgrid” refers to a localized energy system capable of operating in a grid-connected mode (i.e., not 100% islanded). A microgrid may integrate distributed energy resources such as solar arrays, fuel cells, battery energy storage systems (BESS), combined heat and power, microturbines, and backup natural gas generator sets. It is expected that these resources would be coordinated through advanced controls and communications infrastructure to optimize performance, improve reliability, and support the University’s sustainability and resiliency goals.
