Can St. Regis become one of the first towns in Montana to be powered by renewable energy? That’s a question George Bailey posed to a group of local residents on March 27 along with a discussion on how that concept could become a reality.

Bailey, who is employed at Primus Power, worked on a two-year project at Colstrip located in eastern Montana. There, open pit strip mining provides bituminous coal, with the 25,000-acre surface Rosebud Mine tapped for four large coal-fire power plants. The plant is closing Colstrip One and Colstrip Two, which will cause a shortage of power in Montana.

“I was working on energy storage out there and it dawned on me that it’s where the big Bonneville Power lines start and those lines go right through St. Regis, and maybe we could do some of this (energy storage) here,” Bailey explained to the group.

The project would entail installing solar panels which would connect to energy storage batteries. Each battery is about a 6 foot box with a big tub with solution inside and a pump which pumps up into a titanium plate and some zinc. There is also acid, like that found in cars, and then it plates and the energy comes out. Each box produces about 25 kilowatts of power and the initial phase of the project would include 10 boxes which each stores about six hours of power.

The project would give the area a reliable source of power for businesses and homes and it would be attractive to companies searching for locations with a reliable energy source, for example data centers. With 2.5 million people traveling along interstate-90, an emergency where the power is knocked out can cause big problems. With this form of backup power, guests at local hotels as well as, other businesses and homes could keep running smoothly until power is restored.

Microgrids are becoming more prevalent as a source of local power. “We are living in different times and we will never see another plant like the one in Colstrip,” Bailey said. The plant in Colstrip is unprotected and it would be a fairly easy target for terrorists to take down the grid, knocking out power to the whole western United States. “Though we will still see the large power plants, the microgrid distribution systems will be less vulnerable to any kind of attack.”

Roughly one megawatt can provide enough power for 1,000 homes for a year and larger businesses, like the Idaho Forest Group, would need 2.2 megawatts. For towns similar to St. Regis, it makes sense to install renewable energy platforms, “it’s a growing opportunity,” Bailey said.

The entire project, called the Northwest Energy Storage and Training Centers, or NEST, will serve as a multi-functional facility for technician training and research. The Department of Energy estimates that 150,000 new jobs will be created by 2025 through the implementation of these microgrids. Several businesses are lined up to partner with the NEST project including Axmen Energy; Jordan Solar; and Siemens-Advanced Microgrid Management System-Spectrum Power.

Phase One of the project will produce about half a megawatt and cost approximately $1.5 million. One funding source could be the Rural Energy for American Program (REAP) Loan/Grant Guarantee. Not only would the center provide employment, but it would also boost the local economy as people travel to the area for training.

The grid would become a part of Northwestern Energy and an energy power purchase agreement would be created with the possibility of a bill to transfer operation to them after the facility is built. The Northwest Energy Storage project is not currently a part of Northwestern Energy, despite the similarity in the name of the two companies. Currently, the group is searching for property for the project with one possibility being the old antique building off of Montana Highway 135.