Scale To Build Off-Grid Clean Energy Microgrid for Premium Refrigerated Cold Storage Facility in the Central Valley of California

December 6, 2022

BUSINESS WIRE

Summary

December 06, 2022 07:52 AM Eastern Standard Time MADERA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Origo Investments is partnering with industry veterans, Amond World, to develop a state-of-the-art refrigerated cold storage facility in the Madera Airport Industrial Park, which will include two 250,000 square feet buildings, each holding approximately 50 million pounds of almonds or other recently harvested crops for farmers and processors.

The facility will provide short- and long-term storage and will increase profitability, extend almond shelf life by up to two years, and simplify hold costs and logistics. Cold storage for California's agricultural industry is a critical link in the supply chain that feeds our country and serves as an engine of economic growth for the state.

In order to guarantee energy access, reliability and cost economics while considering the sustainability of the facility, Origo has partnered with Scale Microgrids (“Scale”) to design, build, own and operate an off-grid clean energy microgrid providing cheaper, cleaner and more reliable power.

The microgrid system will include 1,200 kW of rooftop solar. Storage of the solar energy will be provided by a 1,200 kW/ 2,400 kWh battery system. The microgrid will include two 1,200 kW enhanced emission-reducing controllable generators.

“Central California produces 60% of all the nuts and citrus consumed in the U.S. each year, the almond industry alone produces 80% of the world’s global supply,” says Origo Investments principal Adam Hayner. “We believe that these new cold storage facilities will support local farmers through empowering them to more efficiently manage the sale of their crops over longer periods and ultimately to deliver higher profitability. To achieve this, we are building temperature-controlled storage that focuses on and prioritizes sustainability. Scale Microgrids is there to help support our commitment to the farmers.”

California is facing energy capacity shortfalls and extreme weather events, creating unpredictability for the local utility grid. The completely off-grid microgrid that Scale is building in Madera can run off of solar and storage alone for part of the day, a unique aspect for this size of a project.

“The developer came to us with a need for an off-grid, sustainable, and reliable power system for their facility in order to expedite their project development timeline”, says Ryan Goodman, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder at Scale Microgrids. “The sheer number of pounds of valuable inventory in this facility makes it absolutely impossible to have anything less than 100% continuous, reliable power. Our microgrid provides them with predictable, low energy costs for the long-term, clean power, and peace of mind. We both finance and operate the system, leaving Amond World with only needing to focus on the farmers and the almonds.”

Construction is already underway for the cold storage warehouses, where inside temperatures will dip down to 32 degrees. The energy system and buildings plan to be fully commissioned by May 2023.

About Scale Microgrids: Scale is a vertically integrated distributed energy platform, with a core focus of designing, building, financing, owning and operating cutting-edge distributed energy assets that offer cheaper, cleaner, and more resilient power. Their team of energy and financing experts accelerate growth in distributed energy projects by providing financing to technology providers, energy developers, and OEMs, while also directly helping large energy-consuming customers to take charge of their energy infrastructure and future-proof their businesses.

About Origo Investments – www.origoinvestments.com

Origo Investments is an alternative investment platform focused on thematic real estate opportunities that deliver defensive, long-term, inflation adjusted income for institutional clients and family offices. Origo Cold Storage delivers secure, temperature / humidity controlled, and FDA compliant storage facilities for growers and processors at the start of the critical food supply chain.