Gov. Pritzker Joins ComEd to Present G&W Electric with Record High $2.6 Million Rebate for Largest Commercial Solar/Storage Installation in Illinois - Seite 2

“G&W Electric is demonstrating its well-earned reputation for industry leadership, innovation, and commitment to customers through the creation of its microgrid,” said Gil Quiniones, CEO, ComEd. “Driving innovation through the deployment of renewable energy solutions is a high priority for the state of Illinois and ComEd, and it’s on full display at G&W Electric.”

G&W Electric also benefits from participating in ComEd’s Distributed Energy Resources Management System (DERMS) by expanding the circumstances during which their solar and battery will be able to operate while connected to ComEd’s system. The DERMS alleviates impacts of excess Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) to electric distribution system power quality; and enables G&W Electric to deepen its knowledge on how to integrate its microgrid with external partners and controls.

G&W Electric’s microgrid project began in August of 2021, transforming the roof at the company’s Bolingbrook headquarters into one of North America's largest rooftop solar systems. With nearly 6,000 bi-facial solar panels installed, the grid covers more than 370,000 square feet, the equivalent of nearly eight football fields. Their first call to kick off the project was to ComEd.

“Setting the record for ComEd’s DG rebate program is particularly rewarding to us at G&W Electric as our company was founded by two ComEd Engineers -- Harry Gear and Paul Williams,” said John Mueller, chairman, and owner of G&W Electric. “True to their vision, we set out to build a state-of-the-art microgrid that would ensure reliable and resilient energy for our mission-critical operations and bring us closer to our carbon neutral goals. Our partnership with ComEd, and their proactive involvement and guidance from the start, has been a critical component of the microgrid project’s success.”

The microgrid serves as an integral part of G&W Electric’s innovation strategy to explore and test methods that support decentralization and decarbonization today. The DG rebate will be used to offset the significant investment in the microgrid’s design, deployment, and ongoing maintenance, said Mueller.

G&W Electric’s microgrid became partially operational in November 2022 and fully operational by the end of 2023, resulting in numerous benefits: creating cost savings and revenue generation, improving uptime to maximize productivity, and reducing the company’s carbon footprint toward carbon neutral goals. The microgrid also has enabled the company to avoid 1,504 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, prevented outages and produced more than 3.6 gigawatt hours of energy.