Microgrids have long been used to guard against power outages at facilities where loss of power would be catastrophic.  Hospitals, refineries, data centers, and other mission-critical institutions today account for 772 megawatts of generating capacity according to energy consultant Pike Research.

Today microgrids are being considered for much more than their ability to create energy islands that protect from broad power outages.  Today utilities and their development partners are discovering ways to use on-site power generation in order to allocate distributed energy sources and reduce demand for the entire system.

Microgrids could help neighborhoods through a power outage and increase the stability of the “outside” grid.  On-site power generators could even sell excess supply back to the grid in order to save money for the entire community.

Microgrids will bring intelligence to the “middle” of the smart grid.  As stated by Current Group president and COO Ray Gogel, the first smart grid installations are “smart at the edges, [but] dumb in the middle” because enhanced communications largely don’t exist that connect smart meters, backyard wind-power generation, or other smart grid nodes to power substations and power grid feeder lines.  Gogel made his remarks in an interview with Forbes earlier this month.

“When it comes to a utility figuring out how to manage this wide, dynamic set of resources and control points, the only way they can do that efficiently is to break their networks down into small nodes – i.e. microgrids – and then add a level of control on top of it,” said Dave Pacya, senior vice president of Siemens Energy’s transmission and distribution division in North America.

Siemens has designed a software management system that can help fill in the gaps for these early smart grid installations.  Siemens has partnered with Viridity Energy, a developer of microgrid management software, and BPL Global, a major developer of load control systems, to bring the smart energy management concept to a microgrid infrastructure.

American Electric Power (AEP) has been working on connecting microgrids to the larger system for more than a decade through the use of inverter technology as part of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions (CERTS).  Modern inverter systems allow a microgrid’s generation capacity to serve as a backup source for the larger power grid.  Pike Research says the CERTS system is among the first to connect microgrids to the overall system in a standardized way.

In 2009 AEP demonstrated how its East Busco, Indiana microgrid could maintain its power supply outside of the main power grid.  The system uses CERTS-based technology and large sodium sulfur batteries.  AEP has three of these projects underway in Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia and believes their success will offset the need to construct expensive transmission lines in hard to reach places.

By taking advantage of distributed renewable power generation at homes, businesses, or entire communities, utilities could save massive amounts of money by reducing the need to construct costly distribution architecture to connect to wind or solar farm installations in far-off places.  Locally-based renewable sources are much more convenient and efficient as less power is lost in the distribution process.

The DOE is funding several next-generation microgrid projects in Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, and California.  Several more are in the works including the “virtual power plant” concept that would coordinate local power generation and demand response systems with automation technology in order to balance the supply of the power grid.

Pike Research
1320 Pearl Street, Suite 300
Boulder, CO  80302
http://www.pikeresearch.com

Current Group, LLC
20420 Century Boulevard
Germantown, MD 20874
http://www.currentgroup.com

Siemens
Wittelsbacherplatz 2
D-80333 Munich
Germany
http://w1.siemens.com

Viridity Energy, Inc
100 W. Elm Street
Suite 410
Conshohocken, PA 19428
http://www.viridityenergy.com

BPL Global
500 Cranberry Woods Drive, Suite 170
Cranberry Township, PA 16066
http://www.bplglobal.net

American Electric Power
1 Riverside Plaza
Columbus, Ohio, USA 43215-2372
http://www.aep.com

Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
1 Cyclotron Road, MS 90-4000
Berkeley, CA 94720

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