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North America / Commercial & demonstration

UC Irvine Microgrid

Current status, energy mix, organizations, suppliers, equipment, controls, reported specifications, and project updates—with source-level citations.

CoverageDetailed public record
Named organizations15
System facts32
Sources reviewed10
Evidence reviewed2026-07-20

UC Irvine operates an islandable campus microgrid and research test bed serving more than 30,000 people. The current university description centers on a 19 MW natural-gas combined-cycle plant (13 MW gas turbine plus 6 MW steam turbine), more than 4 MW PV, a 2 MW/500 kWh lithium-ion battery, a 1.5 MVA black-start diesel generator, a 4.5-million-gallon/60,000 ton-hour chilled-water store, ten 12 kV circuits and extensive metering/control. The old 893 kW solar and 13.5 MW gas figures are obsolete snapshots, not current totals.

Research status
UCI Facilities currently states that Central Plant can island the campus and operate normally through an SCE outage, confirming operational status. DOE's Generic Microgrid Controller project completed controller/HIL and field-oriented islanding/reconnection work; current research extends into self-healing and electric-bus support. Public pages do not provide a recent actual outage duration, annual generation mix, battery health or full-island endurance test, so capability should not be confused with demonstrated indefinite autonomy.
Historical classification
University
Reported capacity
See component specifications
Coordinates
33.64050, -117.84430
Evidence note: “Every company” cannot be proven from public material alone. This page lists every organization found in the recovered record and reviewed sources, preserves unknown roles, and explicitly marks undisclosed controller or equipment details.
Report missing evidenceResearch methodology

Project delivery

Who was involved in UC Irvine Microgrid?

15 publicly identified organizations. Where a recovered source named a participant without explaining its work, the role remains explicitly unspecified.

Organization

California Independent System Operator

Demand-response and grid-services market interface [3]

Organization

Coulomb Technologies

Level 2 electric-vehicle charger supplier [3]

Organization

EnerNOC

Demand-response service provider [3]

Organization

ETAP

Electrical-network modeling software and controller-research partner [3][4]

Organization

ETAP and MelRok

Network-model/controller and EnergiStream metering/enterprise energy-management partners. [5][8]

Organization

FuelCell Energy

300 kW molten-carbonate fuel-cell supplier [3]

Organization

FuelCell Energy / Yazaki

Suppliers for a separate 300 kW fuel-cell/40-ton absorption-chiller CCHP research asset. [5]

Organization

MelRoK, LLC

Enterprise energy-management, metering, and demand-response supplier [3]

Organization

Southern California Edison

66 kV serving utility, owner/partner for the controller-test battery and GMC research. [5][8]

Organization

U.S. Department of Energy

Generic Microgrid Controller research funder. [8]

Organization

UCI Advanced Power and Energy Program (APEP)

Microgrid modeling, controller, DER and transportation research lead. [5][8]

Organization

UCI Facilities Management

Campus utility and operating organization [3]

Organization

University of California, Irvine

Campus microgrid owner [3]

Organization

University of California, Irvine / Facilities Management

Owner/operator of campus utility, central plant and distribution microgrid. [5][6]

Organization

Yazaki

Absorption-chiller supplier for the fuel-cell CCHP system [3]

System evidence

Energy mix, capacity, and specifications

Values can describe different project phases, generation sources, storage systems, or other components. Source citations are attached to each figure so discrepancies remain visible.

KW Solar
893 [1]
KW Gas/Diesel
13500 [1]
Storage
Thermal Storage [1]
Electric service
66 kV stepped to 12 kV by two 15 MVA transformers across ten 12 kV circuits [3]
Combined-cycle plant
13 MW gas turbine plus 6 MW steam turbine [3]
Solar PV
More than 4 MW in current university description; archived record documented 893 kW [3][1]
Thermal storage
4.5 million gallons / 60,000 ton-hours [3]
Controller-test battery
2 MW / 500 kWh deployed for islanding and reconnection research [4]
Advanced metering
More than 100 high-resolution meters [3]
Electric network
SCE 66 kV service stepped to 12 kV by two 15 MVA transformers; ten-plus 12 kV circuits, redundant switch banks and underground distribution. [5][9]
Combined cycle
19 MW total: 13 MW natural-gas turbine plus 6 MW steam turbine. [5][9]
Solar PV
More than 4 MW across roofs/parking and tracking research arrays; legacy 893 kW reflects an earlier build stage. [5]
Battery
2 MW/500 kWh lithium-ion at the UCI substation, only 15 minutes at full output; deployed for transition/islanding support and import minimization, not multi-hour campus backup. [7][8]
Thermal storage
4.5 million gallons/60,000 ton-hours chilled water; eight electric chillers provide 14,500 tons plus a 2,000-ton steam-driven chiller. [5]
Other resources
1.5 MVA black-start diesel, 300 kW molten-carbonate fuel cell with 40-ton absorption chiller, 60 kW electrolyzer, EV/bus charging and more than 100 high-resolution meters. [5][7][9]
Energy mix
Natural-gas CHP supplies most campus electricity, with PV, minimal bounded SCE imports and storage/load management. Research literature says DERs exceed 90% of electricity, but no current audited annual split is public. [9][10]

Controls and hardware

Equipment and controller details

Manufacturer and model are shown only when a source names them. Generic descriptions are not converted into guessed product assignments.

01

Enterprise energy management

MelRoK, LLC — EnergiStream

Collects meter data, supports Auto-Demand Response, and feeds real-time information to the campus microgrid model. [3]

02

Microgrid simulation

ETAP — Electrical Transient Analyzer Program

Calibrated campus electrical model used for steady-state, dynamic, and control studies; not itself the field controller. [3]

03

Generic Microgrid Controller

Model not publicly disclosed

APEP, SCE, ETAP, and MelRoK developed and tested a controller against the UCI model and OPAL-RT platform; a commercial model name is not stated. [4]

04

EV charging

Coulomb Technologies

University page reports 28 public Level 2 chargers in one section; older table values are retained only in source context. [3]

05

Fuel-cell CCHP

FuelCell Energy / Yazaki

300 kW molten-carbonate fuel cell integrated with a 40-ton Yazaki absorption chiller. [3]

06

Enterprise energy management

MelRok — EnergiStream

Aggregates high-resolution meter data and supports Auto-Demand Response/model integration. [5]

07

Network model/controller platform

ETAP / UCI APEP

Calibrated ETAP model, OPAL-RT HIL and Generic Microgrid Controller for dispatch, islanding, shedding, self-healing and reconnection; ETAP model is not itself the plant controller. [8][5]

08

BESS

Model not publicly disclosed

2 MW/500 kWh lithium-ion system associated with SCE; battery/inverter OEM and current condition are not identified. [7]

09

Fuel-cell CCHP

FuelCell Energy / Yazaki

300 kW molten-carbonate fuel cell with 40-ton absorption chiller; research asset distinct from the 19 MW central plant. [5]

Technical record

Architecture, performance, and project updates

Concise technical facts, milestones, operating results, and later developments. Dated notes distinguish historical design claims from current evidence.

  • Management

    This solution will consist of installing 100 advanced meters capable of delivering high resolution data to the UCI Microgrid model as well as sub‐metering building loads. [1]

  • Management

    The locations of these meters have been chosen based on a visibility study performed with the UCI Microgrid model. [1]

  • Management

    The vehicles include battery electric vehicles (Scion iQ, Toyota Rav4), plug‐in hybrid vehicles (Toyota Prius Plug In), and fuel cell hybrid vehicles (Toyota fuel cell vehicles). [1]

  • Islanding

    Central Plant can separate from SCE, shift the turbine to isochronous control, shed noncritical load as needed, use short-duration battery support and later resynchronize; simulations established allowable pre-island import/generation bounds. [6][8]

  • Near-zero import

    Interconnection rules maintain a bounded few-hundred-kW import to avoid inadvertent export while campus DERs meet nearly all load under typical grid-connected operation. [9]

  • Research evolution

    Later work uses the validated microgrid/GMC model for fault self-healing and evaluates twenty battery-electric buses as mobile resilience resources; modeling results are not installed stationary capacity. [10][9]

  • Current-data gap

    Current UCI confirmation establishes operational islanding capability but not a recent event duration, load served, fuel endurance, PV yield, BESS state of health or verified black-start sequence. [6]

Provenance

10 sources

Primary owner, government, university, supplier, and engineering sources are preferred. Archived references preserve claims whose original pages moved or disappeared.

  1. [1]
    Recovered Microgrid Projects record

    Internet Archive · Archived source · captured 2020-07-06

  2. [2]
    UC Irvine Microgrid Page

    apep.uci.edu · Archived source · captured 2020-07-06

  3. [3]
    UC Irvine Microgrid

    University of California, Irvine Advanced Power and Energy Program · Primary source

  4. [4]
    UCI Microgrid research overview

    University of California, Irvine · Primary source

  5. [5]
    UC Irvine Microgrid

    UC Irvine Advanced Power and Energy Program · Primary source

  6. [6]
    UCI Campus Unplanned Power Outages

    UC Irvine Facilities Management · Primary source

  7. [7]
    UCI Microgrid Research Overview

    UC Irvine APEP · Primary source

  8. [8]
    A Generic Microgrid Controller — final report

    U.S. DOE OSTI / UC Irvine · Primary source

  9. [9]
  10. [10]

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