The Challenge

EcoForce Solutions, a Santa Ana-based project developer, was eager to find a solution for a hospitality facility wishing to address the increasing expenses caused by skyrocketing electric rates. Located in San Bernardino, Budget Lodge, a budget motel near the University of California Riverside, faces exorbitantly high demand charges under SCE TOU-GS-2 Option D (at $34/kW summer on-peak and $22/kW noncoincident max). The customer was interested in switching to the Option E electric rate to reduce the facility’s max annual peak demand, meaning they would need to acquire qualifying technologies like solar + storage to make the switch. EcoForce Solutions was prepared to find a solution by procuring tier-one ESS equipment and an energy management system to pair with the facility’s existing 405 kW solar array.

The Solution

With Energy Toolbase, EcoForce Solutions swiftly secured a BYD CHESS 120 kW, 2-hour storage system integrated with ETB Controller and Acumen AI™, alongside the facility’s 405 kW solar array. Configured for demand charge management and TOU arbitrage, the system forecasts and responds to site conditions in real time, reducing peak demand and shifting load to lower-cost periods to significantly lower electricity costs. Pairing storage with solar also enabled the customer to qualify for the TOUGS 2 Option E rate tariff, enabled by Acumen AI’s industry-leading machine learning algorithms that leverage historical interval data to forecast load and shave peaks.