Microgrids have gradually arrived on the scene for the U.S. military. And for various global utilities as a building block for the smart grid. But as the use of microgrids expands into the smart grid, operators should not forget about grid physical and cybersecurity. via Smart Grid: Interested in microgrids? Don’t forget security.
The first is the growing strength of the microgrid trend. Oh sure, mainstreaming is still two or three years away, but many people now believe microgrids will be a large part of our energy future. More importantly, many people are now underway on pilots and small deployments. The second is the idea of microgrid-as-a-service. Think Continue reading →
You can’t throw a stone at smart grid conference these days and not hit a panel talking about microgrids. The chatter is incessant, but the actual work done to date has been far more limited. Deep-pocketed players, like the U.S. Department of Defense, universities and large corporations, are all investigating microgrids, but only a few Continue reading →
The first is the growing strength of the microgrid trend. Oh sure, mainstreaming is still two or three years away, but many people now believe microgrids will be a large part of our energy future. More importantly, many people are now underway on pilots and small deployments. via Smart Grid: How about microgrids as a Continue reading →
Dear NTS-AT Colleagues: Interest in microgrids as a strategy for ensuring power reliability, quality, and flexibility is growing — not only for military applications, but also for campus environments in the commercial, government, health care, education, industrial, and remote sectors. North America is strongest in planned capacity growth through 2017, while APAC and the Continue reading →
Three new reports do the math on growth in distribution microgrids and energy storage and quantify utility plans for beefing up cybersecurity in 2013. Microgrids Suggesting that a handful of innovative utilities are moving forward with microgrid projects despite significant institutional bias and regulatory obstacles, Pike Research believes such early initiatives herald a future in Continue reading →
It’s official: California’s big three utilities are getting behind OpenADR 2.0, the latest version of an open standard for turning buildings, motors, microgrids and other distributed forms of “demand” into grid assets. Starting next year, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric will ask their partners to support OpenADR Continue reading →
Research commissioned by IEEE and conducted by Zpryme details how energy storage, distributed generation and microgrid technologies will evolve globally over the next five years due to rapid smart grid deployment. The report comes to some interesting conclusions. First, private and public sector funding for microgrid, distributed generation and grid-level storage research and development, and Continue reading →
esearch commissioned by IEEE and conducted by Zpryme details how energy storage, distributed generation and microgrid technologies will evolve globally over the next five years due to rapid smart grid deployment. The report comes to some interesting conclusions. First, private and public sector funding for microgrid, distributed generation and grid-level storage research and development, and Continue reading →
It’s a truism in the smart grid industry that all of the disparate technologies that fall under the categories of smart meters, distribution automation, generation and transmission control systems, high-speed communications networks, and the rest will someday link into a bigger, smarter whole. But to what end? A new survey, commissioned by IEEE and conducted Continue reading →
IEEE announced today the release of a new report that they commissioned. The report details how energy storage, distributed generation and microgrid technologies stand to evolve given the rapid deployment of the smart grid across the globe over the next five years. via Strong potential growth for storage, distributed generation and microgrids: pv-magazine.
Local power generation with microgrids showed the benefits of reliability during Hurricane Sandy. The widespread power outages in the wake of Hurricane Sandy cast light on the weakness of a completely centralized electric power system and spotlighted the benefits of distributed power generation. A number of locations reported that on-site power generation and the ability Continue reading →
Rick Nicholson correctly points out that our long-term future is what I will call “federated microgrids.” Many small to mid-sized microgrids trading power back and forth and islanding themselves when needed due to outages in the main grid. But that future is a long ways away – probably two decades until full build out. There Continue reading →
The deployment of sophisticated intelligent microgrids, in particular dc microgrids, including energy storage and generation, may be more important to the future of electricity than the development of the so-called ’smart grid. According to analysis by Darnell Group, simply trying to manage the existing electric grid by overlaying a ’smart’ layer will not be cost Continue reading →
Most Americans don’t have to think much about energy reliability. We plug in a computer and it powers up; we flip a switch and the lights come on. While very reliable today, the U.S. electricity grid is old and has gone at least five decades without a significant technological upgrade. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Continue reading →
Electric utilities’ approaches to integrating distributed energy resources using microgrids have varied widely in recent years. Some companies view utility distribution microgrids with a skeptical eye at best, and at worst as an existential threat to their traditional business models. Meanwhile, a handful of utility innovators are moving forward with microgrid projects despite significant institutional Continue reading →
On the smart grid roadmap team, we would declare “Every end node is a microgrid!” When pressed, we would say “Remember, microgrids are recursive.” Sometimes an observer would ask how we communicated with these microgrids. “Information only flows through the ESI!” (Energy Services Interface). We would then stop, often leaving the listener more mystified than Continue reading →
Microgrids have been around for decades and they have come a long way. The earliest systems relied on manual controls and were fueled by diesel generators. Today, microgrids rely more on renewable distributed energy generation and employ sophisticated technology. Today’s technology offers utilities new ways to increase reliability and manage variable, bidirectional resources, allowing for Continue reading →
Centralized power plants have been around since the 1880s. A hundred and thirty years later we’re starting to see some growth in decentralized or distributed generation of power at individual buildings, primarily through renewable sources such as solar panels or wind turbines. Between the distinct approaches of centralized power plants and energy generation at individual Continue reading →
The year 2011 signaled a shift in the microgrid sector, as some of the first large-scale commercial microgrid projects reached significant milestones. With the adoption of newly created IEEE islanding standards in July 2011, the shift from pilot validation projects to fully commercial projects accelerated, as evidenced by the large jump in planned, proposed, and Continue reading →
