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Photo Courtesy SEPTA REVENUE GENERATION of last year. The agency also added a tunnel wrap, covering the entire tunnel walkway, creating a visually arresting and interactive experience, like walking through a supermarket, at one of its main hub stations. SEPTA's trains turn electricity into braking energy that gets stored in a battery. A revenue stream is created by selling some extra energy to a microgrid market. The battery may also cut SEPTA's electric bills by $190,000 per year. REUSING ENERGY Meanwhile, SEPTA tapped another revenue stream, turning energy from brake regeneration into dollars. Stemming from a partnership with Philadelphia-based smart grid company Viridity Energy, the agency is saving and making money from wayside energy storage. SEPTA's trains turn electricity into braking energy that gets stored. The brake creates electricity, which goes into a battery that is installed at a substation, Andrew Gillespie, chief power engineer, SEPTA, explains. Five years ago, when SEPTA initially looked into capturing regenerated energy using a battery wayside storage device, the financial return on investment showed that it washed, because the cost to build the system would equal the cost savings over the life of the system, Gillespie recalls. More recently, Viridity approached SEPTA and proposed a dual-use of the battery by participating in the Microgrid market to double the economic value. Viridity also won a $900,000 grant through the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority, which made the option more feasible. The system is installed on the Market-Frankford line and has been running for about seven months. A revenue stream is created by utilizing the battery to participate in a microgrid market — integrated energy systems made up of distributed energy resources and multiple electrical loads operating as a single grid. 54 < mETRO mAGAZINE JANUARY 2013 metro-magazine.com