Even when the Bay Area’s electrical grid falters, three Fremont fire stations remain a sturdy lifeline to surrounding homes, schools and businesses. The doors open in an emergency, so the fire trucks can get out and save lives. Metal gates open and close. Fremont’s 911 system, linking tens of thousands of residents to first responders, is […]
Monetizing microgrids
The following is a contributed article from Megan Kerins and Ana Sophia Mifsud, senior associates at Rocky Mountain Institute. As the energy industry transitions toward more distributed energy resources, electric utilities face a critical choice: embrace this opportunity or perceive it as a threat. This is especially true in the Caribbean where energy resilience is driving renewable microgrid […]
Dawn of the utility microgrid
Today, for many states in the US, integrating distributed energy resources (DERs) is becoming increasingly important, and communities are creating plans that look closely at the needs of not only community sustainability, but also the needs of critical service providers, such as police, fire, and water. For example, a city might choose to add solar […]
How Microgrids Will Keep The Lights On
With the recent surge of renewable energy projects, driven by accelerated cost reductions, centralized energy production is becoming less and less attractive. (Note the community microgrid island graphic has both power and geothermal with a centralized management platform. Originated in Germany. Art) A microgrid is designed to provide uninterrupted power and can balance load demands […]
Can California avert new gas plants with distributed resources
Regulators will soon decide between two paths regarding SCE’s proposed pilot — one where DER remains secondary to natural gas and another where they move to transform the distribution system. A decision facing California regulators will show how deeply the state is committed to the energy transition for which Democrat Governor Jerry Brown claims national and global leadership. The decision is […]