Rock Run Industries

Rock Run Industries, a contract manufacturer, needed to boost operational resilience and sustainability at its 300,000-square-foot facility in Topeka, Indiana. Their solution: a sophisticated distributed energy resource (DER) system designed to power operations like laser cutting, welding, and powder coating for the RV, outdoor leisure, and steel service industries.

This strategic upgrade integrates a 2 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS), 600 kW of Capstone microturbines, and a 1 MW on-site solar field array. Critically, the system captures waste heat from the microturbines and ducts it directly into curing ovens for enhanced efficiency in the powder coating process.

Working with Vergent and Photon Electric, Rock Run transitioned from an incompatible diesel generator to an inverter-based, microturbine generation strategy. This upgrade successfully harmonized the BESS, solar, and microturbines, achieving an impressive 99% system uptime.

Beyond reliability, the microturbine system delivers significant operational and environmental benefits. It reduces natural gas consumption and maximizes greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions. The modular design allows for precise, 200 kW staged deployment, optimizing fuel use based on real-time demand. Furthermore, advanced Vergent microgrid controls prioritize solar energy, only deploying microturbines when needed to meet actual load requirements. This intelligent management actively minimizes GHG emissions while optimizing the economic dispatch of all DER assets.