April 2, 2025
C&I Battery Storage Solutions with Ryan Mayfield & Jayson Smith | EP274
Today on the Clean Power Hour, Tim Montague sits down with Ryan Mayfield of Mayfield Renewables and Jayson Smith of CPS America to explore commercial and industrial battery solutions, with a special focus on the new "Gonzo" 125 kW / 261 kWh C&I battery from CPS America.
The conversation dives deep into microgrid applications, examining both resiliency and demand response use cases. Jayson Smith details the technical specifications of the Gonzo unit, highlighting its grid-forming capabilities with a 20-millisecond switchover time, 125 kW continuous output, and scalable design allowing multiple units to be connected for larger installations.
Safety is thoroughly discussed, with Smith explaining the multiple layers of safety features built into the Gonzo system, including cell sensing circuits, heat/smoke/fire detection, dry pipe systems, and deflagration panels. Ryan Mayfield provides valuable context around current fire safety standards, including NFPA 855, CSA TS 800, and 9540A certification, and how CPS America is addressing jurisdictional requirements across different regions.
The experts also cover integration with building systems, microgrid controllers, commissioning processes, and maintenance plans. CPS America's exceptional service model is highlighted, with 60% of their workforce dedicated to service and support including free commissioning services and long-term service agreements.
Whether you're an installer looking to understand commercial battery options, a developer navigating complex safety regulations, or a facility owner exploring demand charge reduction and resiliency options, this episode provides crucial insights into the rapidly evolving commercial and industrial battery storage landscape.
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Yeah, so we, essentially, I've built out on my end. It's essentially a map of the US with the pinpointed locations where, you know, the jurisdictions might be a little bit more stricter than other places. So that alone, kind of, right off the bat, gives us the Hey, have you already asked about this? Have you checked on this? Which is something that we do with all of our customers, no matter our product.
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Are you speeding the energy transition here at the Clean Power Hour, our host, Tim Montague, bring you the best in solar, batteries and clean technologies every week. Want to go deeper into decarbonization.
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We do too. We are here to help you understand and command the commercial, residential and utility, solar, wind and storage industries. So let's get to it together. We can speed the energy transition.
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So we're here with the Gonzo. This is a 250 kW 261 kWh CNI battery. This is the latest solution, single container but and we're here with Jayson, who's an ESS Solutions Engineer, so you can answer all the geeky questions.
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And I wanted to bring you in, Ryan, because you get to see a bunch of different both solutions, but also problems.
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And you're a micro grid expert, but I guess first and foremost, Jayson, what did CPS design this product for?
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Yeah, well, I mean, the reason for the design, there's multiple I want to start with that, but the main reason for this design is so we could pack everything into one container and make it a lot easier for the installation in different areas, whether it be for demand charge or micro grid application, but the main idea is for ease of installation, that way you can essentially come out there, plop it down, run your AC lines, run an Ethernet line to your EMS, and then be ready to rock and roll.
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So
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one of the things that I was curious about, and we were talking about this right before, so you're able to do full grid forming with this. So you're able to use it for demand response. So if you're, you know, wanting to do it on for a financial basis, but you're also able to do full grid forming.
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And so tell me a little bit about, like, what's the output?
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What is the full rate of capacity, continuous output, and kind of, what does that look like for grid forming?
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Yeah, definitely.
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So whenever we're in one of those micro grid scenarios, and we need to be grid forming. We can 100% do that. Our switch over time for the PCS is actually around 20 milliseconds.
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But with that 125 with, with what we see here, with the 260 2.5 kilowatt PCS is total output would be 125 kilowatts. So that's around 150 amps, is what we can give you on the max end, and then the total battery capacity that you see here is 261 kilowatt hours. So that'd be two hour discharge. Now we actually do have a secondary model for this where we could take out one of these 62.5 kilowatt PCs, and then they'll equal just 160 2.5 kilowatt so therefore you get four hours of discharge, but you still get the all of the same functionality that you would get with the 125 kilowatt block.
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And can you pair other battery racks with it? And can I, can I get more storage capacity?
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Most definitely, most definitely. So not being in a micro grid, you can put pretty much as many as you want together, and then you'll have their each individual AC outputs, and the comms will actually daisy chain all over to a single EMS. So well, single EMS through the local controller. So you really only need one local controller to control as many parallel systems as you want. Now in a micro grid scenario, we've currently tested up to 12 of these in parallel, but from what we've seen so far, the ability might be limitless.
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So with four containers, you get a megawatt hour. And what else I guess one of the things that I'm always curious about is, when does the CNI solution end and the utility solution begin? I mean, you also have a five megawatt hour, a 40 foot container, or 20 foot container, 20 foot container, batteries, 20 foot PCs, right?
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So it really is kind of a 40 foot but if I'm a if I'm an industrial user, and I could use, let's say, two megawatt hours of batteries, which is kind of right in between. Am I going to stack a bunch of these, or am I going to go for a larger solution?
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So for a solution like that, if your voltage is around, is 480 volts, you would definitely want to go with this solution. You can actually get two megawatt hours in the same 20 foot container footprint as you can with this unit, just because you can stack them essentially side by side, about a two inch gap in between. So the overall footprint is almost equivalent to a 20 foot container. Now, if you're looking at a voltage level in the medium. Voltage range. So 12.47 to 34, five, then that's when you're going to be wanting to look at our utility scale equipment, because that's the, you know, voltage output for it.
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So this, this is primarily suited for, you know, 480 volt systems. And really, anything above about 2.5 megawatt hours you're getting, you're getting rather large, right? So you might want to start looking at the utility scale. But, I mean, you can put as many of these in the line as you as you'd like.
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What
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are you seeing in the market, Ryan, in terms of commercial, industrial batteries right now? Well, one of the
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things so we are really focused on micro grids.
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And so we're doing a lot of micro grid type projects. And so for us integrating a solution
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like this with micro grid controllers. And so that was going to be one of my questions for you, is, what, what are you doing in terms of micro grid controls and being able to also looking at grid contactors, grid isolation devices? What are you guys doing around that? Because that's a big thing for us, and that's something that we're always looking for in this kind of a size of a system, definitely. So we actually have a really good partner. Their name is alexity, and they're who we partner with with the EMS, usually now, given we are EMS agnostic with this system, but when we have the ability to partner with them, they actually provide a full package that will come with all of your disconnect breakers and everything else needed for a micro grid scenario. So we lean on them heavily for that. In other instances, it would be one of those things where we'll talk with the engineering team and decide what the best method is going to be, but at the end of the day, the EMS, it's, it having view of everything is really what's going to control the system. So the alexity is talking with your EMS, it's talking with our local controller, local controller.
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Okay, okay, perfect. Okay,
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and then, so, yeah, we're doing a lot of projects. We're using motorized breakers, we're using contactors, all those kinds of things. So that would be a little bit outside the scope of all of those, if I understand that, right, obviously, gonna be probably talking with alexity or talking with your getting all getting all those components to to be working together, correct?
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Yes, but we will help with the SLD design and making sure that what you're putting forth will work. That's one of the things that we'll do for our customers free of charge.
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When you say micro grid, I think resiliency. Are there other applications besides resiliency for micro grids that you work on? I
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mean, we work on projects that are doing grid supports, doing demand, charge, response, things like that. But in my mind, that's more of grid support mode versus resiliency micro grid. So when I'm thinking micro grid. That's kind of where my mind automatically goes, is off grid. Power has gone out.
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We're backing up some sub, some number of loads, whether that's a whole building or not, but that's where, that's where I'm going when I'm talking about that. There
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are a few scenarios, like, for instance, maybe on an island or something like that, where they have some generators, so they're their own little isolated grid. And in those scenarios, we can be used there, most definitely, to help, essentially take away some of that load that those generators are seeing. And, you know, if generators need, you know, some type of repair or maintenance, then obviously we can be grid forming and take over the loads of the island and those applications. But that would be about the only other one I can think of off the top of my head, the
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Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America, maker of North America's number one three phase string inverter with over eight gigawatt shipped in the US. The CPS product lineup includes string inverters ranging from 25 kW to 350 kW. Their flagship inverter, the CPS 350 KW is designed to work with solar plants ranging from two megawatts to two gigawatts. CPS is the world's most bankable inverter brand and is America's number one choice for solar plants, now offering solutions for commercial utility ESS and Balance of System Requirements, go to Chintpowersystems.com or call 855-584-7168, to find out more. The the challenge with resiliency, in my mind, is getting enough megawatt hours or kilowatt hours of batteries right? And making that pencil, everybody would love to have a great big battery, right? But it's expensive and and those use cases are few and far between, hopefully, right? I mean, unless you are truly on some off grid operation, but so for the run of the mill, C and I, let's just talk about the West Coast. You know, the California market storage is now the attachment.
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Rate of storage is going way, way up upwards of 80% I think.
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And so for a typical, let's say, a 250 KW solar project on a school, and they want to do batteries to reduce to. And charges. Is this the kind of solution that you would think about? Yes,
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yeah, no, this absolutely would be kind of the scale that we're looking at and kind of with the services that we're looking for. So for us, it's a matter of then going and looking at the project exactly, trying to get in ahead of time, looking at, like a feasibility analysis, looking at the actual loads, you know, will the battery be able to survive long enough to meet those demand charges, you know, and understanding how high those go and what the expectations could be. So for us, that's a big part of getting in on the front end and being able to make sure that we're specking in the right thing. But absolutely, this would be the type of product that we'd be looking
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at. Safety is always a concern when we're dealing with lithium iron batteries. Even though LFP is a relatively safe chemistry, we see a cooling a cooling system here. Do you want to talk about some of the safety features and and then Ryan, if you would comment about what is it that the market is really looking for? But first, what are the safety features? Definitely,
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definitely multiple levels of safety features, just to start off, first and foremost, obviously monitoring, right? So within each one of these battery modules is going to be your CSC, so your cell sensing circuit.
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From that we can see essentially what each cell is doing, what the temperature of it is, and so on and so forth. And then there are three different levels of soft cut offs. If we see a cell that's, you know, maybe getting a little bit too hot or something like that. On top of that, we also have what would be your heat detector, smoke detector and fire detector. And then there is, additionally, on the back side, a dry pipe. So that dry pipe actually allows for the cabinet to be flooded in a, you know, bad thermal runaway event scenario. In addition to all of that, there's also a deflagration panel on the top, so if the pressure would ever build up too high, we can obviously have that open up and then and then vent out to prevent from having an explosion. Obviously, the container is 60 minute, rated with steel and wool and then steel, again, as far as the construction of it. So multiple, multiple levels of fire suppression safety even built into the modules itself, again with a CSC, and then also these caps here are actually for pressure relief. If you know there were to be a thermal runaway event, can't forget about the aerosol can up here as well. So, once again, multiple, multiple levels. So
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I'm curious on so with that, well, one first off, on the fire detections system, are you able to tie into existing like building fire detection systems or building alarm systems in order to be able to meet the a 55 requirements? Yes,
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you definitely can. We actually saw this in our previous model on the back side where you can, you can tie in the exact same type of thought process has been put into this.
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It's actually all going to be back behind this, this control panel here, where you can tie into an existing fire suppression
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system. And then one of the things that the industry, I'm sure you guys, are getting, you're hearing this, you're getting, you know, fire testing, large scale fire tests.
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So I'm curious on kind of where you guys are going with large scale fire tests, understanding that, you know, where we stand today with the CSA, the TS 800 where we're close, but we're not quite there as a consensus standard. Some I would love to know kind of what CPS is doing, what your approach is going to be on that, because I know some manufacturers are going ahead and testing to that. Are you all you know what is? What's the roadmap look like for you guys on that? Definitely,
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first off, I want to say thank you, because I watched one of your amazing videos. I guess it was a few weeks ago about this exact topic, very, extremely interesting. But to answer your question, so that is something that obviously we're very concerned about and we are already working towards. So this cabinet itself is actually in the process of doing the full scale fire test to check to ensure that we have no propagation to adjoining cabinets that are side by side.
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And then, obviously, you know, with places like Kern County and, you know, and New York Fire Department, they're now requiring things like NFPA 69 for these smaller scale battery systems that's also on the docket. This particular model that you see here is rated to NFPA 68 but the next co around, which should be here in handful of months or so, will be fully NFPA 69 compliant, so having that additional ventilation as well. So we're really gearing up, and I would say, preparing for the future, which will be, you know, stricter fire safety rules. And
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so given where we're at today, 9540 a, I'm presuming, I'm making a presumption here, but I would expect that you guys have gone through that. I mean, well, you've got it 9540 listed. So of course you have. How are you helping people like with jurisdictions when you know they're looking at their the IFC, they're looking at the 855, Five, how are you helping them kind of navigate through that 9548 documentation in order to make sure that jurisdictions can feel comfortable with with what you have and what you're installing here? Definitely,
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definitely. And you know, all of that is on a on a case to case basis, as far as where they are, right? But, I mean, I've been on multiple meetings just essentially going through, explaining things to people you know who need explanation as far as the certain location that they're going to go into. Again, you do have those few places like Kern County and New York where, you know, at this time, we aren't able to necessarily fit into those markets because of some of their, you know, strict regulations that they have. But I would say that the majority of the US is still pretty much the same, and what we currently have now complies with everything. So Right?
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I mean, so we're at a point right now, so 9548 still is applicable, and we can still apply, and jurisdictions can accept that. So we're seeing we are seeing that as well. And for us, it's a matter of communicating with the clients, understanding, if they they make sure they understand 9548 versus the large scale fire tests, and where, where things are at. But, yeah, we're working with jurisdictions as well. Yeah, so
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we essentially, I've built out on my end. It's essentially a map of the US with the pinpointed locations where, you know, the jurisdictions might be a little bit more stricter than other places, so that alone, kind of, right off the bat, gives us the Hey, have you already asked about this?
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Have you checked on this? Which is something that we do with with all of our customers, no matter our product, that's
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great. That's one of the things that I'm really encouraging people, and I'm glad to hear you guys are doing, because was just had a meeting yesterday, encouraging the Contra or the contractors and the developers out there of just because your Asda doesn't know about it doesn't mean you shouldn't talk about it. And you know, we need safety. We need, you know, safe systems and and to not bring them up is just doing ourselves a disservice, I would say, along with that, so operations and maintenance. So part of NFPA 855, is also doing a commissioning and O and M plans. What are you guys doing to help with both the commissioning, I guess, the actual physical commissioning, but then also putting the commissioning plan together? Is that something that you guys are working on definitely
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so we actually already have one built out. So there's a commissioning checklist that's already made for prior to energization. And then there is obviously another checklist for the commissioning process after that. As of right now, we actually offer free commissioning services. So each time one of these is installed, our own engineering team, myself included, will go out to the site to essentially hand hand hold installers through the commissioning process to make sure that everything is working exactly how it should. And we do that, really, to help them get very comfortable with the product. And then through that, we can train them until eventually they'll have the ability to do it all themselves.
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Now, as far as you know, operations and maintenance further on down the down the line. Obviously our manuals include everything, and you know that on site training that we already have is very helpful for them. However, we actually also include, or have the ability to include, a long term service agreement. So you may not know this, but CPS America actually 60% of our workforce is service because we pride ourselves on our good service, and with that, the same thing applies to our battery system. So with ltsa through CPS America, you'll have the ability for one of our guys to come out and do all of the regular maintenance that needs to be done, and then any big overhauls as well.
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Very cool. I love it. I don't have any other questions. Do you have any other
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questions? No, I think that really helps. And so, yeah, you were asking kind of what we're looking for, and a lot of what we're looking for is like, kind of that support working around helping, making sure that we're actually meeting the codes and the requirements.
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So for us as an engineering firm, that's a big part of it.
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So great to great to hear that.
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You know, manufacturers are stepping up and doing that. So
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check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com. Please give us a rating and a review on Apple or Spotify and follow us on YouTube. I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage.
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Thanks so much to Jayson and Ryan. Thanks guys. You.
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