Brookville Smart Energy Bus Depot supports the sustainability, electrification, and climate resilience goals of Montgomery County, Maryland
Source: Credit to AlphaStruxure and Montgomery County, Maryland
| Project Name | Montgomery Microgrid Charging Depot, Maryland |
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| Location | Brookville Smart Energy Bus Depot, Montgomery County, Maryland |
| Project Sponsor / Borrower | Montgomery County, Maryland |
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| Value Capture Techniques | Joint Development and Solar Energy Use |
| Mode | Other: Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure & Solar Station |
| Description | Montgomery County, Maryland leveraged its progressive energy purchasing regulations to create a public-private partnership with AlphaStruxure, a joint venture of Schneider Electric and the Carlyle Global Infrastructure Opportunity Fund, to build a microgrid depot to charge county-owned electric buses. This project will help prepare the site for a minimum of 70 electric buses that will be operated from the facility including transitioning 44 diesel buses in Ride On Montgomery County’s fleet to electric. The infrastructure will be housed at the Brookville Smart Energy Bus Depot. The Brookville Bus Depot will be the first of its kind to integrate microgrid controls and solar canopies with electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The microgrid will use energy that originates from solar panels at a bus depot rather than the traditional electricity grid — the process used by most transit agencies with electric buses. The goal is to provide sustainability, reliability, and resilience for the county's transportation system. Electric bus charging, incorporating clean energy production technologies, will enable the County to provide sustainable, resilient, and reliable energy supply for bus charging and site operations. The project will include the following:
The 5.6 MW microgrid includes distributed energy generation, energy storage and over 2 MW of charging capacity. AlphaStruxure will implement a strategy to transition the onsite gas generation to carbon neutral sources in the near future, allowing the microgrid to run on 100 percent renewable energy in alignment with the County’s goal to reach net-zero emissions by 2035. The county structures energy-as-a-service (EaaS) approach where a third-party implements advanced energy infrastructure equipment that supports charging a bus fleet. Through environmental credits, tax credits and other incentives the county intends to use a minimum amount of county capital. This approach allows the county to deploy the infrastructure with no upfront costs, instead of allocating that investment over time as an operating cost for the transit agency. |
| Cost | No upfront payment. The ESA agreement, similarly structured as a traditional power-purchase agreement (PPA), not only includes the sale of electricity but also usage of the underlying infrastructure and assurances that the hardware will continue to charge the bus fleet even if the local utility suffers from long-term outages. The “first-of-its-kind Energy-as-a-Service” (EaaS) approach. |
| Funding Sources | Public Private Partnership, State, and local grants
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| Project Delivery / Contract Method | DBFOM (Design, Build, Finance, Own, and Operate) |
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| Project Advisors / Consultants | N/A |
| Lenders | Equity Providers
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| Financial Status / Financial Performance | Financial closing on September 9, 2021, on a 25-year Energy Services Agreement.The microgrid and charging infrastructure will be delivered at no upfront cost to the County through an EaaS contract, a long-term agreement ensuring predictable operating expenses and guaranteed performance for sustainability, resilience, and reliability. Rather than buying the microgrid and charging infrastructure outright, the County partnered with AlphaStruxure, who builds, owns, operates, and maintains the system. The County then purchases the electricity and resilience supplied by the microgrid and charging infrastructure on an ongoing basis. This model delivers the supporting infrastructure required to electrify our bus fleet, customized to our specific needs, at no upfront cost while also enhancing resilience and environmental sustainability,” County Department of General Services Director David Dise explained. |
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| Contacts | Montgomery County, Maryland Director David E. Dise, Director Jamie P. Cooke, Deputy Director & Chief Operating Officer Greg Ossont, Deputy Director Antenna Group for AlphaStruxure The Carlyle Group |
