Page 7 - March-April25 Vol42 No7

2020 Tornadoes Served as an Impetus for Department, and the Tennessee Valley Based on future site development plans
Innovation Regional Communications System. and taking into consideration on-site
Invention and collaboration can be The public safety complex houses constraints such as overhead power lines,
enhanced by disasters. In 2020, a series the Hamilton County 911 Call Center, archeological resources and wetlands, the
of powerful tornadoes cut through the the Emergency Operations and Real- amount of MBEC’s usable space includes
Chattanooga area, extinguishing power time Intelligence Centers, and the ten acres for a solar array, and seven acres
to Ooltewah and East Brainerd. Those headquarters for both the Police Services for a surrounding shade buffer.
weather events (and their aftermath) Center and Fire Department. Looking Ahead: Distributed Energy for
underscored the need for an updated The Tennessee Valley Regional Regional Impact
microgrid during extreme weather events, Communications System (TVRCS) The City of Chattanooga and its
to ensure communications and power headquarters and Radio Shop also have partners’ background in strategically-
continued to be operational at the fire offices there, providing integrated radio focused distributed energy resources
department and police headquarters. coverage for emergency responders, (DER) have resulted in enhanced regional
While the Tennessee Valley Authority hospitals, universities, private industry, resilience and continuity of operations at
(TVA) and the Electric Power Board railroads, and local, state and federal critical infrastructure locations.
(EPB) already provide some of the agencies. Project leaders say Chattanooga’s
country’s most reliable energy, an ever- It also includes the Tennessee Valley efforts stand as an example of
increasing potential for natural and man- Authority and U.S. Department of collaborative innovation, proving
made disruptions required investment in Energy, spanning across more than 70 that DER assets and their host sites
additional fortification for the city’s most communities and 18 counties. can provide essential services while
critical services. Additional solar arrays were installed strengthening services’ reliability for
Thus, in 2021 the Power 2 Protect at the Moccasin Bend Environmental surrounding regions.
initiative was announced, a partnership Campus (MBEC), which houses a The DRC downtown solar array,
between the city and EPB to provide regional wastewater treatment facility the Power 2 Protect project and other
power redundancy and resilience to key serving about 400,000 customers in innovative Chattanooga solar initiatives
public safety agencies in the event of multiple communities and counties across have been hailed as forward-thinking
catastrophic weather events. The project 200 square miles. MBEC provides critical ways to harness the energy of the sun,
aim was to provide continuous power storm and wastewater management for with an eye towards the region’s future
supply for many days on end, even if the those communities and water quality power needs.
main supply has been disrupted and the functions for the Tennessee River valley.
sun refuses to shine.
It began with a large-scale, multi-site Moccasin Bend Environmental Campus
collaborative microgrid project between
the City of Chattanooga and EPB.
The overall project aim is to increase
resilience and redundancy of power
supply to its public safety agencies via
on-site solar arrays, traditional backup
generation, battery storage and a
microgrid controller.
Public Safety Campus on Amnicola
Highway Becomes Key Site
Between 2021 and 2023, the first
portions of the grid were installed at
the Public Safety Campus on 3410
Amnicola Highway, as well as the
administrative offices of the Chattanooga
Police Department, Chattanooga Fire

Current power Overview

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