Solar energy generator news

May 22, 2024

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Most microgrids today are single buildings that rely on diesel generators to run when the grid is out. They`re simple backup, redundant power.

But some more advanced microgrids, such as the Clean Coalition`s planned community microgrids, are looking into the future, when multiple sources of generation can support a community of homes and businesses.

Feature	Community Microgrid	Traditional Microgrid
Scale	Spans an entire substation grid area, securing benefits for thousands of customers.	Covers only a single customer location or a small number of adjacent locations
Cost	Offers a more cost-effective solution by: 1) achieving much broader scale of DER deployment and 2) utilizing a systems approach that identifies optimal locations for DER in context of existing local distribution grid assets and loads.	Maximizes benefits for single customer but does little for the local grid. Replicating this approach across an entire community area would be: 1) extraordinarily expensive and 2) fail to leverage and optimize the existing distribution grid assets
Grid resilience and security	Provides backup power to prioritized loads that are critical to the entire community, such as police and fire stations, water treatment centers, emergency shelters, etc.	Provides backup power to only a single location or customer.
Scalability	Enables easy replication and scaling across any distribution grid area.	Requires tedious work to implement at each individual location; starting from scratch in terms of both analysis and physical assets.

Chart from Clean Coalition

Intended for Long Island and Hunters Point in San Francisco, these microgrids are designed to to optimize local, rooftop solar energy. That means moving distributed solar to 25 to 50 percent of a local area`s annual energy consumption, a feat unprecedented in microgrid technology today, let alone on the larger electric grid.

Craig Lewis, the executive director of the Clean Coalition, joined John Farrell last week to talk about these microgrid projects, why microgrids are moving beyond use in just single buildings, and what policy changes would help his initiative the most.

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