Microgrid Knowledge’s Kathy Hitchens reports on OATI’s partnership with the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians to deploy GridMind® across their new multi-resource microgrid in Tehama County, California.
The article details how the project combines 4.5 MW of solar, a 3 MW/15 MWh long-duration zinc energy storage system from EOS, and a 3 MW/6 MWh lithium-ion battery system — all managed through a single GridMind® controller. The two sites, located on either side of the road near the tribe’s Rolling Hills Casino campus, are designed to operate collectively or independently during grid outages and wildfire events.
OATI’s David Heim spoke with Microgrid Knowledge about the project’s broader significance: how it was developed, funded through FEMA BRIC and California Energy Commission grants, and structured as a replicable model for other tribal communities pursuing energy sovereignty.
This project is an awesome example of success, and it’s something that can be a blueprint or a template for many other tribes to follow. How it was developed, the use and the value it’s bringing to the community, the virtue of combining multiple DERs, how the funding happened, the number of different parties that are working together to make it happen—there are a million different layers of how this could be a template for success.
David Heim, OATI Chief Strategy Officer
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