Delivering integrated solutions that are built to last.

Coffman’s alternative energy engineering capabilities bring projects to life, from reducing energy costs to energy solutions for remote locations off the utility grid. Our experience includes stand-alone and building integrated designs for wind, solar, biomass, energy storage, hydrogen, combined heat and power plants (CHP), microturbines, flywheels, fuel cells, and recovered heat projects across the United States, Alaska, and the Pacific.

Unique energy sector projects are a significant part of our experience. These range from utility-scale to facility-based battery storage systems, wind turbine foundation designs in arctic permafrost, CHP, ground and roof-mounted solar arrays in tropical environments, biomass district heating systems, and microgrid installations in urban and remote environments.

Our power system engineering clients include developers, independent power producers, construction contractors, electric utilities, local, state, and federal agencies, and industrial facilities. Services include multidiscipline design, feasibility studies, permitting, RFP preparation and peer reviews, and serving as an owner’s engineer.

Coffman also has considerable experience in detailed Front-End Loading (FEL) project development processes. Evaluating projects at early stages can save clients significant effort by not pursuing poorly defined or characterized solutions at each delivery gate.

Coffman can support high-level and detailed documentation based on the project stage for schedules, cost estimating, design viability, economic analysis, risk registers, VIPs, and project execution plans.

Building Integrated Renewables

Coffman has a long history of incorporating local energy resources such as solar, wind, wood heating, battery storage, and waste heat into facility designs. Project types range from power plants to rural schools to federal government facilities to leased commercial real estate. Coffman focuses on designing systems that maximize customer benefit while addressing underlying business objectives such as resiliency, LEED certification, or pure economics.

Alternative Energy Technologies

Biomass

Whether you’re dealing with biomass from forest wood or a waste stream, Coffman can help you design the solution to transform it into electricity, heat, or fuel. We have more than 15 years of broad biomass project experience and can support the early planning stages from total installed costs and life cycle cost standpoint (LCOE), including site inspections, feasibility, and pre-feasibility studies. Thanks to broad experience in industrial piping design, we have the ability to integrate carbon capture and storage to further reduce your project’s carbon footprint.

Microgrids

Coffman’s experience with integrating microgrid technology for both islanded and interconnected systems extend from Alaska and Guam to the continental US. We have worked with the US Department of Defense, municipalities, off-grid cities, and commercial entities to improve resilience, reduce life-cycle costs, and maximize renewable resources. We are uniquely positioned to support microgrid clients with our in-house multidiscipline capabilities and decades-long experience integrating microgrid technologies. Coffman supports microgrids that are 100% renewable and microgrids combined with utility connections or onsite conventional power systems.

While many think of microgrids as systems including PV and batteries, microgrids can include a wide range of technologies from load shifting, short term backup power, long term backup power, or complete off-grid operation. Coffman has experience with microgrids utilizing wind, gensets, turbine generators, diesel, solar PV, batteries, flywheels, combined heat and power, microturbines, electric boilers, and other technologies.

Hydrogen

Pipes at a alternative energy project.While most hydrogen today is produced by Steam Methane Reform (SMR), the shift has begun to produce hydrogen with renewable energy or capture and sequester the carbon from natural gas. Coffman has experience with hydrogen projects, refineries, natural gas compressor stations, biomass, and pipeline projects. Our experience also extends to high-pressure tank storage, liquidized natural gas, modularized process equipment, and dispensing related to many hydrogen projects. Whether your project involves creating, storing, or transporting hydrogen, Coffman has more than 30 years of electrical instrumentation and controls, pipeline, and process engineering experience to develop engineering solutions for buildings or modular design.

Hydrogen-powered fuel cells are increasingly common in forklifts and are becoming available for backup power use and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs). Coffman can provide arc-flash studies, site design, value engineering, and modular design to optimize and implement successful fuel cell projects.

Learn more about our Hydrogen services.

EV Charging

Utilities, governmental organizations, and commercial customers are increasingly installing Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSEs) in a wide variety of settings, including parking garages, malls, hospitals, fueling stations, offices, schools, and other locations. As Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Plug-in Hybrids (PHEVs) continue to grow in market share, Coffman has supported clients with engineering and construction administration to plan, permit, and build the infrastructure needed for the electric vehicle revolution.

Our teams work closely with clients to offer a range of related EV charger services for owners, EPC contractors, building managers, and fleet operators throughout the design lifecycle. We can assist with feasibility studies, including initial cost estimates, configurational layouts, accessibility (ambulatory & van-accessible EVCSs), and specifications. Coffman also supports arc flash studies and other system studies. We can help with the multidiscipline design for electrical, structural, civil, and fire protection engineering.

Many EV chargers are co-located with Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) or part of a microgrid build-out. Coffman leverages our experience to ensure the systems are compatible. Coffman has experience with level 2 and level 3 (DC Fast Charging) equipment from various manufacturers, including power-sharing and power management.

Flywheels

Our engineers understand what it takes to design flywheel systems, from foundation design to controls integration. Our experience spans over a decade and includes designing flywheels at power plants to support reliability, wind power integration (reduce impacts from load spikes on combined cycle plants), and installations that support 3 MW electric cranes at ports. We also provide electrical tie-in design services, module design, civil design, and installation requirements.

Wind

Coffman’s multidiscipline engineers understand the complexity of designing a wind power system, from site selection and permitting to tower selection, foundation design, and structural static modeling. Coffman’s experience is strongest in medium to small wind power systems that are part of microgrids or off-grid systems. Our experience spans two decades and includes designing wind structures with various tower designs for vertical and horizontal axis turbines. Coffman has worked on wind projects ranging from 24 MW (2 MW wind turbines) to smaller mid-size 2 MW (100 to 350 KW Turbines) to small commercial/residential systems.

Solar

Coffman has designed systems for both solar photovoltaic and solar thermal projects from rural Alaska to urban areas in Hawaii and California. Our solar power designs include roof-mounted and ground-based systems, including grid-connected and stand-alone configurations. With clients in the industrial, military, residential, and commercial markets, we are experienced in projects large and small. We can provide the civil, structural, mechanical, and electrical engineering scope needed for your project. In addition, our services include complete design, design-build assistance, third-party design review, and field verification.

Contact

Tony SlatonBarker, SE