Microgrid
ProjectsSubmit a project

Home / Directory / Denver International Airport

North America / Critical infrastructure

Denver International Airport

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

CoverageDetailed public record
Named organizations9
System facts19
Sources reviewed8
Evidence reviewed2026-07-20

The legacy title is misleading: this is the Peña Station NEXT microgrid at 61st and Peña, an energy district next to Denver International Airport, not an airport-terminal-wide island. The core installation combines a 1.6 MWdc/1.3 MWac airport parking-canopy array, a 259 kWdc/200 kWac Panasonic-rooftop array and Xcel Energy's 1 MW/2 MWh lithium-ion battery. The islanding demonstration initially protects Panasonic's building while also testing feeder-level solar integration and grid services.

Research status
Operational as a district/test-bed asset: Peña Station NEXT's current site says the Xcel-owned battery and solar form an on-site microgrid. The original utility demonstration had a two-year pilot period, but no current public report gives battery state of health, islanding-event duration, annual solar production or whether every original research use case remains enabled. Denver airport's separate 2025 2.2 MW/4.4 MWh AGTS backup battery is a different project and is excluded.
Historical classification
Building
Reported capacity
See component specifications
Coordinates
39.85610, -104.67374
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 Denver International Airport?

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

Organization

Denver International Airport / City and County of Denver

Parking-lot/solar-canopy host, land/infrastructure partner and airport capital contributor. [3][5]

Organization

L.C. Fulenwider

Peña Station NEXT master developer and public-private consortium participant. [4][5]

Organization

Namasté Solar / SunPower

PV construction and equipment partners for the parking canopy and rooftop systems. [3][6]

Organization

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Cooperative research partner for the wider 400-acre energy-district master plan and modeling. [7]

Organization

Panasonic

Publicly named participant; role not specified in the recovered record [1]

Organization

Panasonic Enterprise Solutions

Anchor tenant, rooftop-PV host and initially islanded building/load. [2][5]

Organization

Public Service Company of Colorado / Xcel Energy

Battery owner/operator, serving utility and microgrid demonstration lead. [2][5]

Organization

Xcel Energy

Publicly named participant; role not specified in the recovered record [1]

Organization

Younicos

Supplier/integrator of the 1 MW/2 MWh battery and control platform. [5]

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
1300 [1]
Storage
2000 kWh [1]
Parking-canopy PV
1.6 MWdc/approximately 1.3 MWac over 609 parking spaces at the airport-owned 61st and Peña lot. [3][5][6]
Panasonic rooftop PV
259 kWdc/200 kWac. Combined with the carport, the core solar portfolio is about 1.86 MWdc/1.5 MWac; the legacy 1.3 MW figure captures only the canopy's AC rating. [5][6]
Battery
1 MW/2 MWh lithium-ion, two hours at rated output; cell chemistry subtype and cell manufacturer were not disclosed in reviewed public material. [2][5]
Demonstration scale
CEC's case study totals the PV and battery power resources at approximately 2.86 MW on a nameplate-sum basis. This is not average generation or airport load served. [5]
Cost
Approximately US$10.3 million for the district demonstration excluding Panasonic's rooftop system; Denver separately reported US$4.5 million airport capital for the parking facility, which included 800 spaces and related infrastructure. [5][3]
Resilience reserve
The study reserved about 20% of battery capacity for approximately four hours of Panasonic-building backup; the remainder supported grid/market use cases. [5]
Energy mix
Solar, stored solar/grid energy and normal Xcel feeder supply. No dedicated fossil generator is identified in the core Peña microgrid, and no current annual renewable fraction is public. [2][5]

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

Battery energy storage

Younicos

1 MW/2 MWh lithium-ion BESS and dispatch/control system owned by Xcel; battery-cell OEM and current usable capacity are not public. [5][2]

02

Solar parking canopy

SunPower

Approximately 1.6 MWdc over 609 of the lot's 800 parking spaces; Namasté Solar participated in construction. [3][6]

03

Rooftop PV

Model not publicly disclosed

259 kWdc on Panasonic's building; module/inverter model detail is not disclosed in the reviewed sources. [5][6]

04

Electric-vehicle charging

Model not publicly disclosed

Eleven Level 1 charging stations were included at the airport parking lot. They are loads/amenities, not generation capacity. [3]

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.

  • Storage

    Battery – lithium [1]

  • Demonstrated use cases

    PV ramp smoothing and voltage management, feeder/system peak reduction, energy arbitrage, frequency/regulation service and islanding of the Panasonic building. [2][5]

  • Grid context

    The test feeder was described at roughly 30% solar penetration, making distribution-voltage and variability management central research objectives. [5]

  • Delivery speed

    The storage/control core was commissioned in roughly 20 weeks under the original pilot, a notable public-private deployment result. [5]

  • Boundary warning

    The surrounding Peña Station NEXT district is approximately 400 acres, but the cited evidence does not show that every future building can island. Likewise, airport ownership of the parking canopy does not make this a whole-airport microgrid. [7][4][3]

  • Separate airport asset

    DEN later announced a separate 2.2 MW/4.4 MWh battery to back up the Automated Guideway Transit System. It should not be added to Peña Station's capacity. [8]

Provenance

8 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 2021-04-20

  2. [2]
  3. [3]
    Denver International Airport opens 61st and Peña parking lot

    Denver International Airport · Primary source

  4. [4]
    Peña Station NEXT vision

    Peña Station NEXT · Primary source

  5. [5]
    Peña Station NEXT Microgrid case study

    California Energy Commission / Navigant · Primary source

  6. [6]
    Peña Station solar portfolio

    Namasté Solar · Primary source

  7. [7]
    Peña Station NEXT Energy District Master Plan cooperative research

    National Renewable Energy Laboratory · Primary source

  8. [8]
    DEN on track to meet sustainability initiatives

    Denver International Airport · Primary source

Continue exploring

Related projects in North America