Researching the Human Side of Microgrids, Too, for Storm-Battered Tallahassee

on September 2, 2019

Battered by Hurricane Michael last year, the City of Tallahassee and researchers are trying to design a storm-hardened microgrid system, one that considers both engineering and human psychology.

The city is working with a cross-disciplinary research team from Colorado State University (CSU) that won a $194,000 grant in June from the National Science Foundation. The team hopes to create a microgrid that would minimize damages and losses even in Category 5 hurricanes.

Hurricane Michael brought down 90% of Tallahassee’s electricity grid and cut the interconnection to a neighboring utility that ultimately affected 1.2 million people in the Southeast. Aiming to avoid damages of that scope, the research team is working with city officials and departments to review emergency preparedness plans and existing utilities and infrastructure.

Their goal is to create a design framework for Tallahassee that can be used by other communities, according to Sid Suryanarayanan, CSU Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering professor and project leader.

“We are confident that there is a significant place for microgrids in providing resilience to electricity grids in hurricane-prone regions. What we intend to bring to the table is the use of behavioral psychology and systems engineering concepts of emergency response in the design and operation of these microgrids,” he told Microgrid Knowledge.

Achieving stakeholder buy-in
The CSU research team is applying their collective expertise in electrical power engineering, microgrid design and operation, behavioral psychology, and emergency response to identify and reconcile design trade-offs, Suryanarayanan explained.

A sustainable grid needs to balance costs on three legs: environmental, budgetary viability, and costs passed on to customers, he said.

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Fractal Energy Storage ConsultantsResearching the Human Side of Microgrids, Too, for Storm-Battered Tallahassee