Microgrids: light in a blackout
This post appeared in the September 2017 edition of PV Magazine and can be found in the archive - here.
Microgrid development in the US is driven by a microgrid’s ability to operate during blackouts and provide ancillary grid services. As more microgrids emerge within the grid, the clustering of microgrids could transform the centralized grid to a decentralized grid of microgrids powered by renewables.
[caption id="attachment_3638" align="alignnone" width="3992"]
The UCSD microgrid offers a great place for companies to pilot new technologies. This EV charging station by EVgo was part of a project to demonstrate the value of DC fast charging stations. Source: EVgo.[/caption]
As the sun sets on the beaches of La Jolla, the flows of electricity powering the University of California San Diego (UCSD) silently shift from the solar panels to the battery storage, fuel cells, and combined heat and power plant that make up the campus’ microgrid. The microgrid powers 45,000 people across 450 buildings on the campus. Bryon Washom, director of strategic energy initiatives at UCSD, estimates that the microgrid saves the university $850,000 per month by powering over 90 percent of the campuses electricity, heating, and cooling demand.
The microgrid not only saves the university money but also serves as a critical asset for San Diego Gas & Electric, the local utility. In an interview with Greentech Media, Washom describes how during the 2007 wildfires UCSD shifted from importing 4 MW of power to exporting 3 MW in only 10 minutes. This 7 MW swing made the difference in keeping the SDGE grid operational during the time of stress.
Microgrid adoption
The US Department of Energy defines a grid-connected microgrid as “a group of interconnected loads and distributed energy resources with clearly defined electrical boundaries that act as a single controllable entity with respect to the grid and can connect and disconnect from the grid to enable it to operate in both grid-connected or island mode.”
Microgrids are being adopted for the value that they provide to their owners and the surrounding electrical grid. During a blackout, a microgrid allows customers to continue receiving power from their distributed energy resources (DER). Without the ability to disconnect from the grid, these DERs will power off during a blackout so they won’t feed power back onto the local grid endangering electrical workers that may be repairing the grid.
As more DERs have been added to the grid, the inability to utilize these resources during a blackout has left many in despair. No other instance embodies this desperation like Hurricane Sandy when blackouts left 1.1 million people without power.
Buffering against blackouts
Much has been done to modernize the grid in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. New York’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) program was kicked off in the wake of Hurricane Sandy to rebuild, strengthen, and modernize New York’s energy system. Microgrids, with their ability to operate during blackouts, represent a key part of the REV program.
In March, Governor Cuomo announced $11 million in funding for 11 community microgrids across the state in stage two of the NY Prize, a microgrid funding competition. The $1 million each winner received funds a detailed engineering and business model design plan.
Stage one of the NY Prize rewarded up to $100,000 to fund 83 microgrid feasibility studies across New York in July 2015. Anticipated to begin May of 2018, stage three will provide concessionary construction funding through the NY Green Bank.
In a statement, Governor Cuomo stated, “It's critical that communities across New York have reliable power to provide vital services when they are needed the most."
The Village of Rockville Centre was one of the eleven winners in stage two of the NY Prize. The Rockville Centre microgrid will service critical facilities across the city.
Julie Scully, who manages public relations for Rockville Centre, described to pv magazine the city’s motivations for building the microgrid. “According to studies performed by the Army Corps of Engineers, Rockville Centre is in a floodplain, which makes it particularly susceptible to coastal storms and flooding given its proximity to the ocean and history of storms,” Scully stated. “The microgrid will provide a variety of benefits both in normal operating mode and in islanded mode. In islanded mode, Rockville Centre would be able to provide electricity to multiple facilities that provide critical services to the community including shelter in the Village Hall, emergency services at the police and fire stations, medical care at the hospital and assisted living, and multiple retail businesses providing important goods and services.”
Microgrids also allow local utilities to operate more efficiently. Scully went on to say, “under normal operating mode, the generation assets will help Rockville Centre to meet peak load, defer or avoid investments in transmission infrastructure, and reduce wholesale energy costs, which would benefit ratepayers.”
In addition to lowering costs from deferring transmission and peak power upgrades, microgrids offer an opportunity to earn revenue by providing ancillary services to local and neighboring utilities. Ancillary services support utilities’ main function of matching supply and demand of electricity. Microgrids are well suited to provide frequency control and voltage support, congestion management, reduction of grid losses, and power quality improvements. Microgrids can also help restart the grid and accelerate power restoration when blackouts occur.
[caption id="attachment_3644" align="alignnone" width="7466"]
Primus Power has built a solar-storage microgrid at the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, California. The microgrid provides the base with power resiliency and reliability to critical military assets. Source: Primus Power.[/caption]
Regulatory reform
Despite all the benefits that microgrids can provide to the main grid, microgrid adoption has been inhibited by the current electricity market. A 2015 study published by the California Energy Commission (CEC) found that the most cited reason for low microgrid deployment was a lack of policies or regulations that enable microgrids.
Unlike renewable energy, states are unlikely to set specific policy or legislation mandating microgrid deployment. Instead, microgrids will be deployed to meet state targets for renewable energy, energy efficiency, and grid advancement.
Mike Gravely, the team lead for the Energy Technology Systems Integration Unit in the Energy Research and Development Division at the CEC, articulated to pv magazine, “it is recognized that microgrids support California in meeting our future clean energy policies, like increasing renewables on the grid, increasing the concentration of distributed energy resources on the grid, allowing more electric vehicles to be supported by the grid, improving energy efficiency, and adding more transparency to grid operation.”
Microgrids allow higher penetrations of renewables onto the grid by combining multiple distributed energy resources that can smooth out power variability from solar and wind. Microgrids also provide a platform for more advanced energy control systems to perform demand response. For example, the UCSD microgrid is the largest demand response participant in the SDG&E utility.
To increase microgrid deployment, the California Energy Commission is creating a microgrid roadmap. According to Gravely, “the Microgrid Roadmap is addressing ways to help accelerate the commercialization of microgrids so they will be installed based on their own merit.”
Achieving that vision will involve compensating microgrids for the services they provide. When asked what services will microgrids be most likely to be compensated for, Gravely responded with, “[microgrids] in the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) ancillary services market will likely benefit, since they would be paid for providing those [ancillary] services.” Currently, microgrids provide those services during emergency situations but are normally not compensated. Microgrids may also soon be able to provide distributed energy resource aggregation services through the CAISO.
Beyond the existing services microgrids offer, Gravely also discussed efforts to quantify other microgrid services. “The research community is still working on methodologies to measure the value of grid reliability, the value of greenhouse gas reductions, the value of fast response, and the social value of higher grid reliability and cleaner air. The U.S. Department of Energy has an ongoing research effort to develop new metrics utilities can use to measure some of the above items.”
Grid of microgrids
Amongst all the benefits that microgrids can provide the centralized grid, the true value of microgrids may yet be realized. Rather than being isolated islands in the sea of the centralized grid, microgrids can become the building blocks of a future decentralized grid: a grid of microgrids.
Last month, the distribution company ComEd petitioned for rate recovery on a microgrid in Bronzeville, Illinois, which would be connected to an adjacent microgrid on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus. Elisa Wood, chief editor of Microgrid Knowledge, described the pair of microgrids, “ as [demonstrating] how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts when microgrids ‘talk’ to each other.”
Joseph Svachula, ComEd’s vice president of smart grid & technology, stated that “working together, clustered microgrids can offer even greater electric resilience, resources and serve since they can coordinate their a larger geographic region.”
As microgrids begin to be compensated for the grid services and reliability they provide, microgrid clusters could bring about the transformation from a centralized to a decentralized system that has occurred in mobile phones and computers. While many in the electricity industry have dreamed of such a transformation, microgrids through their aggregation of multiple distributed energy resources may be the building block with which the decentralized grid is built.
Microgrid development in the US is driven by a microgrid’s ability to operate during blackouts and provide ancillary grid services. As more microgrids emerge within the grid, the clustering of microgrids could transform the centralized grid to a decentralized grid of microgrids powered by renewables.
[caption id="attachment_3638" align="alignnone" width="3992"]
The UCSD microgrid offers a great place for companies to pilot new technologies. This EV charging station by EVgo was part of a project to demonstrate the value of DC fast charging stations. Source: EVgo.[/caption]As the sun sets on the beaches of La Jolla, the flows of electricity powering the University of California San Diego (UCSD) silently shift from the solar panels to the battery storage, fuel cells, and combined heat and power plant that make up the campus’ microgrid. The microgrid powers 45,000 people across 450 buildings on the campus. Bryon Washom, director of strategic energy initiatives at UCSD, estimates that the microgrid saves the university $850,000 per month by powering over 90 percent of the campuses electricity, heating, and cooling demand.
The microgrid not only saves the university money but also serves as a critical asset for San Diego Gas & Electric, the local utility. In an interview with Greentech Media, Washom describes how during the 2007 wildfires UCSD shifted from importing 4 MW of power to exporting 3 MW in only 10 minutes. This 7 MW swing made the difference in keeping the SDGE grid operational during the time of stress.
Microgrid adoption
The US Department of Energy defines a grid-connected microgrid as “a group of interconnected loads and distributed energy resources with clearly defined electrical boundaries that act as a single controllable entity with respect to the grid and can connect and disconnect from the grid to enable it to operate in both grid-connected or island mode.”
Microgrids are being adopted for the value that they provide to their owners and the surrounding electrical grid. During a blackout, a microgrid allows customers to continue receiving power from their distributed energy resources (DER). Without the ability to disconnect from the grid, these DERs will power off during a blackout so they won’t feed power back onto the local grid endangering electrical workers that may be repairing the grid.
As more DERs have been added to the grid, the inability to utilize these resources during a blackout has left many in despair. No other instance embodies this desperation like Hurricane Sandy when blackouts left 1.1 million people without power.
Buffering against blackouts
Much has been done to modernize the grid in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. New York’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) program was kicked off in the wake of Hurricane Sandy to rebuild, strengthen, and modernize New York’s energy system. Microgrids, with their ability to operate during blackouts, represent a key part of the REV program.
In March, Governor Cuomo announced $11 million in funding for 11 community microgrids across the state in stage two of the NY Prize, a microgrid funding competition. The $1 million each winner received funds a detailed engineering and business model design plan.
Stage one of the NY Prize rewarded up to $100,000 to fund 83 microgrid feasibility studies across New York in July 2015. Anticipated to begin May of 2018, stage three will provide concessionary construction funding through the NY Green Bank.
In a statement, Governor Cuomo stated, “It's critical that communities across New York have reliable power to provide vital services when they are needed the most."
The Village of Rockville Centre was one of the eleven winners in stage two of the NY Prize. The Rockville Centre microgrid will service critical facilities across the city.
Julie Scully, who manages public relations for Rockville Centre, described to pv magazine the city’s motivations for building the microgrid. “According to studies performed by the Army Corps of Engineers, Rockville Centre is in a floodplain, which makes it particularly susceptible to coastal storms and flooding given its proximity to the ocean and history of storms,” Scully stated. “The microgrid will provide a variety of benefits both in normal operating mode and in islanded mode. In islanded mode, Rockville Centre would be able to provide electricity to multiple facilities that provide critical services to the community including shelter in the Village Hall, emergency services at the police and fire stations, medical care at the hospital and assisted living, and multiple retail businesses providing important goods and services.”
Microgrids also allow local utilities to operate more efficiently. Scully went on to say, “under normal operating mode, the generation assets will help Rockville Centre to meet peak load, defer or avoid investments in transmission infrastructure, and reduce wholesale energy costs, which would benefit ratepayers.”
In addition to lowering costs from deferring transmission and peak power upgrades, microgrids offer an opportunity to earn revenue by providing ancillary services to local and neighboring utilities. Ancillary services support utilities’ main function of matching supply and demand of electricity. Microgrids are well suited to provide frequency control and voltage support, congestion management, reduction of grid losses, and power quality improvements. Microgrids can also help restart the grid and accelerate power restoration when blackouts occur.
[caption id="attachment_3644" align="alignnone" width="7466"]
Primus Power has built a solar-storage microgrid at the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, California. The microgrid provides the base with power resiliency and reliability to critical military assets. Source: Primus Power.[/caption]Regulatory reform
Despite all the benefits that microgrids can provide to the main grid, microgrid adoption has been inhibited by the current electricity market. A 2015 study published by the California Energy Commission (CEC) found that the most cited reason for low microgrid deployment was a lack of policies or regulations that enable microgrids.
Unlike renewable energy, states are unlikely to set specific policy or legislation mandating microgrid deployment. Instead, microgrids will be deployed to meet state targets for renewable energy, energy efficiency, and grid advancement.
Mike Gravely, the team lead for the Energy Technology Systems Integration Unit in the Energy Research and Development Division at the CEC, articulated to pv magazine, “it is recognized that microgrids support California in meeting our future clean energy policies, like increasing renewables on the grid, increasing the concentration of distributed energy resources on the grid, allowing more electric vehicles to be supported by the grid, improving energy efficiency, and adding more transparency to grid operation.”
Microgrids allow higher penetrations of renewables onto the grid by combining multiple distributed energy resources that can smooth out power variability from solar and wind. Microgrids also provide a platform for more advanced energy control systems to perform demand response. For example, the UCSD microgrid is the largest demand response participant in the SDG&E utility.
To increase microgrid deployment, the California Energy Commission is creating a microgrid roadmap. According to Gravely, “the Microgrid Roadmap is addressing ways to help accelerate the commercialization of microgrids so they will be installed based on their own merit.”
Achieving that vision will involve compensating microgrids for the services they provide. When asked what services will microgrids be most likely to be compensated for, Gravely responded with, “[microgrids] in the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) ancillary services market will likely benefit, since they would be paid for providing those [ancillary] services.” Currently, microgrids provide those services during emergency situations but are normally not compensated. Microgrids may also soon be able to provide distributed energy resource aggregation services through the CAISO.
Beyond the existing services microgrids offer, Gravely also discussed efforts to quantify other microgrid services. “The research community is still working on methodologies to measure the value of grid reliability, the value of greenhouse gas reductions, the value of fast response, and the social value of higher grid reliability and cleaner air. The U.S. Department of Energy has an ongoing research effort to develop new metrics utilities can use to measure some of the above items.”
Grid of microgrids
Amongst all the benefits that microgrids can provide the centralized grid, the true value of microgrids may yet be realized. Rather than being isolated islands in the sea of the centralized grid, microgrids can become the building blocks of a future decentralized grid: a grid of microgrids.
Last month, the distribution company ComEd petitioned for rate recovery on a microgrid in Bronzeville, Illinois, which would be connected to an adjacent microgrid on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus. Elisa Wood, chief editor of Microgrid Knowledge, described the pair of microgrids, “ as [demonstrating] how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts when microgrids ‘talk’ to each other.”
Joseph Svachula, ComEd’s vice president of smart grid & technology, stated that “working together, clustered microgrids can offer even greater electric resilience, resources and serve since they can coordinate their a larger geographic region.”
As microgrids begin to be compensated for the grid services and reliability they provide, microgrid clusters could bring about the transformation from a centralized to a decentralized system that has occurred in mobile phones and computers. While many in the electricity industry have dreamed of such a transformation, microgrids through their aggregation of multiple distributed energy resources may be the building block with which the decentralized grid is built.
