The project, part of the California Solar Initiative's Research, Development, Deployment and Demonstration Program, seeks to demonstrate the economic and operational benefits of integrating advanced energy storage systems with existing PV systems for peak demand reduction directly on commercial buildings.

Ice Energy is one of three energy storage companies selected to participate in the program, which will be implemented by SunPower in conjunction with PG and E, KEMA, Sandia National Laboratories and a major national retailer.

"Think of it as sun + ice + wind," said Greg Tropsa, executive vice president and co-founder of Ice Energy. "All three of these technologies have the potential to be more valuable together than any single one of them alone, and that's what this project sets out to demonstrate."

"As the sun begins to set in the afternoon, the Ice Bear units will deliver stored energy to bridge the gap between increasing building electrical demand and decreasing solar energy production," Tropsa explained.

"The project will demonstrate that the combination of solar and ice storage will significantly reduce a building's peak demand charge, saving money for the consumer and helping the environment by reducing the need for utilities to dispatch fossil fuel-fired peaking generators.

The bonus is the Ice Bear storage units are recharged during the off-peak hours, absorbing wind and surplus low cost base load generation."

The goal of the CPUC California Solar Initiative (CSI) is to create 1,940 megawatts of new, solar-produced electricity by 2016, moving the state toward a cleaner energy future and helping to lower the cost of solar systems for consumers.

The CSI RD and D program provides grants to fund solar research and demonstration projects that will measurably reduce the cost and accelerate the adoption of solar, or other distributed technologies, such as storage, that could employ solar, for alternative generation, and reduce the use of natural gas and other fossil-fuel generation.

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