There’s currently a lot of talk about how we support environmental legislation while balancing a grid under pressure, not to mention how to meet future energy demands. In answering those questions, there are many different solutions being discussed and explored.

In areas such as North and South America specifically, frequent severe weather incidents that bring down grid power for weeks and months, such as last year’s Hurricane Irma and the more immediate Hurricane Florence, require much more direct and immediate solutions.

And this is where the use of a decentralized grid or microgrids are now not only being trialled for critical backup power, but for some more remote communities, used as mainstream primary power too. For the modern utility business, these solutions are very different, but increasingly viewed as very compelling business models – and for me, they’re really exciting too.

The compromise for many, though, has been the continued reliance on polluting and un-environmental diesel generator technology to support these projects. However, there’s now a 100 percent clean, weather independent solution that’s not only ready to replace diesel generators, but also provide a host of other benefits too – the modern fuel cell.

What is a microgrid?

If you’re unfamiliar with the microgrid concept, according to the US Department of Energy: “A microgrid is a local energy grid with control capability, which means it can disconnect from the traditional grid and operate autonomously. A microgrid can be powered by distributed generators, batteries, and/or renewable resources like solar panels. Depending on how it’s fuelled and how its requirements are managed, a microgrid might run indefinitely.”

Essentially, a microgrid can backup the grid, or crucially, operate independently. This makes them hugely attractive to local communities wishing to take control of their power generation, as well as rural communities looking for robust and independent electricity supply.

In the continued global shift to renewable energy generation to counter climate change, microgrids enable communities large and small to improve local energy delivery by leveraging the best of green technologies.

Very often, various renewable technologies such as wind turbines and solar panels can be placed within residential buildings, alongside a battery to provide an alternative power source to the grid – not only providing environmental benefits, but also increasing energy efficiency and cost-savings. However, the performance of renewables is subject to variable weather conditions, which frustrates their ability to provide 100 per cent reliability.

The city council of Carson, California has opted to take a closer look at a community microgrid proposed by Charge Bliss, although the city manager recommended that the project be nixed.

With a September deadline looming for a potential $10 million state grant, the council scheduled a workshop on the microgrid for Tuesday, August 14. The full council will then take up the issue at its next meeting August 21.

The decision to keep the project on the table came after council members expressed surprise and confusion after hearing – seemingly for the first time – that the project required no upfront capital from the city, includes performance guarantees, would save the city $8 million in net present value, and is in the running for a $10 million grant from the California Energy Commission.

During a city council meeting Tuesday night, Charge Bliss CEO David Bliss urged the city council not to accept the city manager’s recommendation to kill the project.

“This is more or less as if I were handing you a $20 million lottery ticket, and the city is now about to walk away from it,” said Bliss. “Yes, it is your legal right to forego this, but I would suggest it is your fiduciary duty and ethical responsibility to your community to consider the objective, verifiable value of this project.”

Council members complained that they had not seen anything in writing about the microgrid and its finances. However, Bliss said his company had provided a detailed 600-page plan six different times to city staff and its designees. Charge Bliss and the city had agreed to work together on the microgrid after the CEC provided an initial $1.5 million for planning.

“We’ve provided spreadsheets, analyses in multiple and myriad ways to the city to demonstrate these numbers,” Bliss said. “To be very direct with the council, we are shadow boxing because we have provided information to parties who then do not provide it with you.”

Kenneth Farfsing, city manager, argued against the city signing a power purchase agreement for the microgrid, saying that the project would cost the cash-strapped city $3.8 million upfront for chillers. Bliss, however, said that the plan put forward by his company required no capital contribution from the city. Farfsing acknowledged that the city, itself, added the $3.8 million into the plan in an attempt to reduce the per kWh price of energy in the 20-year power purchase contract.

Surveying the market for a mobile microgrid system for the company ranch, Faith Technologies couldn’t find an off-the-shelf solution that met its requirements. So the company built one.

CEO Mike Jansen began contemplating the idea because the grid serving the company’s 1,000-acre western Kansas ranch isn’t reliable. Plus Faith Technologies is no stranger to microgrids. The planning, engineering, design and installation firm recently partnered with Schneider Electricon an advanced, stationary microgrid at the Bubolz Nature Center in Wisconsin.

Now, Faith intends to install its mobile microgrid, which consists of consists of a 9-kW solar PV array; an intelligent, 144-kWh lithium-ion battery energy storage system and a 10-kW, methanol reformer-based, Altergy hydrogen fuel cell, at the company ranch, which, in addition to promoting sustainable ranching and farming, is used for team building, retreats and similar activities. Industrial Ethernet switches from Westermo provide mobile microgrid controls and remote connectivity. The entire system is housed in a 20 by eight-foot container that can be transported via flatbed trucks.

Fortuitous debut

Development of the mobile microgrid opens up a new business development path for the company. And fortunately, Faith Technologies was able to unveil it to a large audience — the more than 600,000 people who attended last week’s EAA AirVenture, an annual aviation celebration in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin.

The opportunity came about because Faith Technologies served as the main electrical contractor for the air show and exhibition.

“We wanted to show off what the mobile microgrid could do. This, along with the fact that AirVenture is a place where innovative companies display new technologies on a global platform made it the perfect place to debut the new technology,” said Pat McGettigan, vice president of pre-construction.

From its booth at the air show, Faith Technologies charged several planes and an octocopter. “That made the lives of the pilots a little easier, but it also helped us showcase this new technology at an event that attracts people from across the globe,” McGettigan said.

United Nations delegates met in New York in July to assess how much progress has been made towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, a set of 17 aims to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity that were signed by 193 countries.

This year, the meeting was focused on how to ensure access to affordable and reliable energy, water and safe and resilient cities (goals 6, 7 and 11 0f the SDGs).

The three issues are closely connected, according to Itamar Orlandi, head of Frontier Power Research at Bloomberg NEF, the clean energy analysts, in a blog on the company’s website. Since Thomas Edison launched the world’s first utility company in 1882, “electricity has become one of the most basic components of modern life, often taken for granted”, he writes.

“Yet, 136 years on, the industry is still not in a position to serve some 14% of the globe’s population. At this pace, some 700 million people will still not have power by 2030,” he adds.

However, decentralized renewable power technologies, in particular off-grid solar and microgrids, provide the opportunity for areas without access to the electricity network to “leapfrog” the grid. Microgrids consist of some kind of generation capacity and some kind of energy storage. In the past both functions have been performed by diesel generators, but increasingly the generating capacity will be solar and the storage will be battery storage.

While power generated using solar and a microgrid is more expensive than retail grid-connected power, it is hundreds, or even thousands, of times cheaper than the cost of extending the grid to households that are not currently grid-connected. This makes microgrids an attractive option for the 892 million people without power that are living on less than $5.50 a day, who have very modest power demands.

In many emerging markets, there are many people without power but living near to existing cities, and for them it makes sense to simply extend the grid. But Bloomberg NEF estimates that solar home systems and microgrids could grow to become a $64 billion market by 2030 as, from the mid-2020s onwards, more people will be gaining access to power through decentralized technologies than through grid connections.

This is because there will be fewer places left where it is economic to connect to the grid, while components will be cheaper, supply chains will have become more established and there will be a higher consumer uptake of home solar systems. “Of the 238 million new households to get electricity between now and 2030, 72 million will use solar home systems and 34 million will benefit from microgrids,” Orlandi says.

The Port of San Diego aims to show the world just how much microgrids benefit ports with its solar microgrid project, supported with a $4.9 million grant from the California Energy Commission (CEC).

About $4.4 million in matching funds will be provided by the port for the microgrid, which is expected to have 700 kW of solar and 700 kW of energy storage.

A portion of the port’s electrical needs will be served by the microgrid — the demand from the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal.

The port has two cargo terminals, one in San Diego and one in National City, and two cruise terminals in San Diego. It also has public parks, piers, marinas, museums, hotels, restaurants, retail and more on the 34 miles of San Diego Bay waterfront. The port is located adjacent to the airport and also to a disadvantaged community, both of which will reap advantages from the microgrid.

“The port will be evaluating its operation 24 hours a day. We hope to come up with a business case to show how microgrids can benefit the ports all over the world,” said Mike Gravely, CEC research program manager.

It’s especially important to focus on ports because they often emit greenhouse gases due to the use of diesel-powered trucks and other vehicles for loading and unloading equipment, noted Gravely. In addition, they’re often home to airports and other critical facilities. The Port of San Diego is located in an area that has high population density and high pollution.

Sacramento, Calif. — The California Energy Commission on Wednesday approved $10 million in grants for two microgrid projects, including one that represents a new form of partnership between investor-owned utilities and a community choice aggregator.

The commission in a 4-0 vote approved $5 million apiece in grants for microgrids at California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport and at Santa Rosa Junior College in Sonoma County. The CEC said the airport project enables further research into microgrids and many value streams, including demonstrating the ability for CCAs to work with utilities to maintain reliability, offsetting electricity costs, integrating microgrids into CAISO operations, generating data and producing ancillary benefits at the remote location.

The solar/storage project at the coastal airport will “represent the first multi-customer, front-of-the-meter microgrid with renewable energy generation owned by a CCA and the microgrid circuit owned by an IOU.” Redwood Coast Energy will own the generation while Pacific Gas and Electric will own the distribution circuit, with Schatz Energy Research Center leading the project.

The airport facility consists of two ground-mounted solar PV arrays, one a 250-kW array configured for net energy metering service, and the other a 2-MW, 6-acre array for wholesale power sale. It also features a 2-MW/8-MWh lithium ion battery storage system and will additionally power a U.S. Coast Guard station. It will add resilience to 18 accounts on PG&E’s Janes Creek 1103 distribution circuit and is seen as providing a roadmap for microgrid development, the CEC said.

The Santa Rosa project will be 136,000 square feet of rooftop solar on two existing parking structures and two 1-MW lithium-ion battery systems. Other subcontractors and vendors include the California Center for Sustainable Energy, PXiSE Energy Solutions, WorleyParsons, SunPower, STEM and nine other subcontractors to be announced.

Chairman Robert Weisenmiller on Wednesday said the CEC has been communicating with utilities and the Public Utilities Commission about making microgrids a priority in high fire-risk areas to help maintain resilience and reliability.

The California Energy Commission yesterday approved about $10 million in grants, one for a college microgrid in Sonoma County and the second for an airport microgrid in Humboldt.

The projects were selected earlier this year by the state to be considered for the grants as part of a competitive process for about $50 million in microgrid funds.

In Wednesday’s vote, the commission allotted the Sonoma County Junior College District about $5 million for a microgrid that will use photovoltaic solar power to meet 40 percent of the electricity needs at at Santa Rosa Junior College campus.

The college microgrid is expected to reduce peak load, optimize energy use, provide support to the surrounding grid. Highly resilient, the system will allow the campus to provide emergency services during power outages.

The commission also approved $5 million for the Humboldt State University Sponsored Programs Foundation, which is developing a community-scale renewable energy microgrid at the Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport.

The airport microgrid will demonstrate the first multi-customer, front-of-the-meter microgrid with renewable energy owned by a community choice aggregation and the microgrid circuit owned by an investor-owned utility. It is also Humboldt County’s second microgrid; the remote region is also site of the much-cited Blue Lake Rancheria microgrid, managed via an advanced control system by Siemens.

The community choice aggregation, a government-run energy program, will participate in California’s wholesale power market. At the same time, the microgrid will provide low-carbon resilience to a commercial airport and U.S. Coast Guard Air Station, which are critical emergency facilities in Humboldt County.

Hurricane Harvey left Texas with $125 billion in damages, record rainfall, flooding that displaced 30,000 people, and destruction of more than 200,000 homes and businesses.

After the Category 4 Hurricane struck Aug. 25, 2017, Houston looked like little more than an inland sea dotted with islands, according to the New York Times.

In all, the hurricane caused 91 confirmed deaths.

But even as Harvey made its name as one of the most destructive storms in U.S. history, at the time second only to Hurricane Katrina, there was some good news. Twenty-one grocery stores and gas stations were able to continue to provide food, fuel and water to beleaguered storm victims.

Those who found the H.E.B. and Buc-ee’s stores open were probably unaware that they were witnessing the demonstration of microgrid technology that energy insiders believe will help keep us safe as climate change leads to increasingly severe weather.

As more than a quarter of a million homes and businesses struggled in the dark, three Buc-ee’s and 18 H.E.B. stores still had power, thanks to Enchanted Rock (ERock). In doing so, the stores were able to serve as an important community resource.

The Texas-based microgrid company describes its mission as “keeping businesses in business by ensuring electrical reliability.” But it did more than that as flood waters poured into Houston. ERock also discovered it was inadvertently in the business of helping rescue workers stay in business too.

Trying to coordinate rescue efforts during a power outage is a daunting task. Fortunately, workers found an electrified base of operations from which they could work: A Buc-ee’s store in Katy, Texas, still open because of its ERock microgrid. The region was heavily flooded, and many residents were forced to evacuate. But a National Guard unit, a search-and-rescue team and several state agencies were able to operate out of the store.