SOURCE: FUTURE STRUCTURE
In nearly every home, office and facility in America, one can turn on a light, and it shines with unwavering brilliance at any hour of the day, every day of the year. This modern miracle is made possible by a system of power plants, transformers, and millions of miles of wire, collectively referred to as “the grid.” Nearly every light bulb in the continental U.S. receives power from one of three large grids. This deeply entrenched colossus of American infrastructure has an emerging challenger, one which may take decades before it truly competes with the grid for power distribution, but will almost certainly force a high-level rethinking of the American power system: the microgrid.
While there isn’t a universally agreed on definition of a microgrid, the most defining element is a power generation and distribution system that can cut itself off, or “island”, from the centralized grid. Hospitals and other essential facilities often have their own microgrids so that they can continue to operate during blackouts. Emergency backup is the motivation for most existing microgrids (a handful of East Coast states began microgrid projects after Hurricane Sandy). It is only recently that the idea of microgrids that exist primarily for cost-competitive power distribution has reached some level of credibility. That, however, is enough to spur action from state governments and utility companies, who see a potential sea change on the horizon.
For the foreseeable future, the shift toward a more decentralized system of power distribution will be incremental. Investment in this area is focused on trial projects, as utilities and state governments try to get a handle on what we are capable of.
“We know we need to figure this out,” said Josh Castonguay of Green Mountain Power, a Vermont-based utility company. “We need to come up with alternative ways to manage, supply and control the grid.” Green Mountain Power recently broke ground on a project to build out 2.5 megawatts of solar power and 4.5 megawatts of energy storage.
The California Energy Commission (CEC) released a program opportunity notice, which devotes $26.5 million to several types of clean energy initiatives. Among these is “high-penetration, renewable-based microgrids,” which could power a community or large facility (such as a stadium) while meeting the standards of consumers accustomed to modern power availability. While this investment is not huge, it represents an interest in non-emergency decentralized power generation, one which is likely to only grow.
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