BoxPower in 2020: Annual Recap
GRASS VALLEY, California — Despite the twists and challenges of 2020, the BoxPower team was extremely grateful to continue its trajectory of growth this year. Our support networks, customers, advisors, and hardworking team members have been invaluable in supporting us through this difficult year. The next few paragraphs outline our efforts and achievements in 2020, and look ahead to 2021.
BoxPower’s dedicated team has allowed its microgrid products to produce a real shift in energy utilization and demonstrated significant measurable results.
| Metric | 2020 | Lifetime (All Projects) |
| kWh Generated | 1,001,952 kWHr | 18,372,459 kWh |
| CO2 Offset | 852,043 lbs | 26,307,921 lbs |
| Gallons of Diesel Offset | 36,109 gal | 830,598 gal |
| Individuals Impacted | 2,370 people | 4,300 people |
We installed 15 new projects this year. Some were in familiar sectors, including hurricane resilience projects in Puerto Rico and indigenous electrification projects in Alaska. BoxPower also pioneered new markets, including the medical sector and the wildfire prevention sector.
Our projects in the medical sector focused on providing life saving resiliency to hospitals with unreliable energy access. Our largest project in this sector was for the MCHC (Mendocino Community Health Clinic), a low-income medical center in rural Northern California. This project followed a 2-year streak of lengthy and costly power outages at MCHC. Between PSPS events and fire damages to power lines, MCHC had lost over $400,000 in revenue and equipment during a single fire season; additionally, without a critical baseline of power, MCHC cannot effectively serve its neediest patients. BoxPower designed a 290 kW solar + 464kwH storage microgrid to save $85,000 in annual utility bills and meet MCHC’s critical power demand during outages, ensuring that the facility can perform essential duties during grid instability.
Our projects in the wildfire prevention sector focused on reducing the risk presented by wire-and-pole electric transmission lines. Above-ground transmission lines are a leading cause of wildfires in the American west, with hot and dry climate conditions increasing their ability to initiate fires. The Sagehen Research Station project serves a remote wildlife research facility north of Truckee, CA. Sagehen’s electricity was previously provided by several miles of electric transmission lines that pass through dense pine forest. During the summer, these lines were a severe wildfire risk and were frequently shut off. Although de-energizing these lines eliminates fire risk, it leaves the research facility without power. “Fire hardening” these transmission lines would significantly decrease fire risk; however, this is a very costly and time-intensive process. Instead of spending millions of dollars hardening their lines, the electric utility decided to purchase a BoxPower solar + storage + propane hybrid microgrid. Now, the research station will rely solely on BoxPower’s system during the wildfire season.
Additional notable projects included a resilience hub at a school in Guayama, Puerto Rico, a grocery store in the remote indigenous community of Pilot Point, and a 100 bed shelter for those displaced by COVID-19 in Santa Clara County. The Guayama system provided 24/7 reliability for the entire community during multiple 2020 outages, while the Pilot Point project will enable the grocery store to lower prices to rural customers by 5% due to the energy savings. BoxPower anticipates continued growth in the medical and wildfire prevention sectors during 2021 with megawatts of projects in the pipeline. Our hybrid microgrids are finding invaluable solutions to safe, reliable, clean and affordable production. As predicted by Angelo Campus, BoxPower CEO, “As outages and distribution costs increase across the country and world, the value of a microgrid is increasing rapidly. This combined with the decreasing cost of inputs will cause the microgrid adoption to skyrocket.” We are grateful for a fruitful 2020, and look forward to continued growth and exploration in the year to come.
