Microgrids: Building Blocks of the Smart Grid
source: http://earth2tech.com/2010/02/17/microgrids-building-blocks-of-the-smart-grid/
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The term “microgrid” may conjure up images of self-sufficient military bases and remote outposts, generating and consuming power without any connections to the larger electricity grid. After all, backup generators that support multiple buildings — the bare-bones definition of a microgrid — are already a mainstay of hospitals, refineries, data centers, semiconductor plants and other institutions that can’t afford to let the power go down, even for a second. Such stand-alone microgrids now add up to about 450 megawatts of commercial and industrial capacity, and another 322 megawatts in the campus and institutional sector, in the U.S., according to Pike Research.
But utilities, as well as their customers and partners, are increasingly looking past microgrids’ ability to “island” themselves to protect from broader power outages, and are seeking out ways they can use their on-site distributed power generation, and demand reduction and management systems to help the grid at large. Theoretically, these types of microgrids could help the outside grid keep its own power quality stable, helping entire neighborhoods ride through disruptions. And at the end of the road, microgrids could sell their generation and demand reduction back to the utilities they usually buy power from, giving would-be microgrid operators a whole new set of financial incentives to help bolster their business cases.
Legos of the Smart Grid
In fact, these bite-sized smart grid systems could be an inevitable part of the build out of the “super grid” envisioned by such smart grid champions as Al Gore. That’s because microgrids could help ease the “smart at the edges, dumb in the middle” problem recently described by Ray Gogel, president and COO of Current Group. Gogel told Forbes in February that all the smart meters, rooftop solar panels and other “nodes” on the edges of the grid will require much more robust communications and controls along the “middle mile” of distribution substations and feeder lines to operate effectively. Properly designed and integrated microgrids could aggregate many of these edge nodes into a single point of interconnection and interface, making the job of coordinating them in the middle that much easier.
Dave Pacyna, senior vice president of Siemens Energy’s North American transmission and distribution division, sees microgrids as a natural part of the evolution of the smart grid. Pacyna said in a January interview:
http://earth2tech.com/2010/02/17/microgrids-building-blocks-of-the-smart-grid/
But utilities, as well as their customers and partners, are increasingly looking past microgrids’ ability to “island” themselves to protect from broader power outages, and are seeking out ways they can use their on-site distributed power generation, and demand reduction and management systems to help the grid at large. Theoretically, these types of microgrids could help the outside grid keep its own power quality stable, helping entire neighborhoods ride through disruptions. And at the end of the road, microgrids could sell their generation and demand reduction back to the utilities they usually buy power from, giving would-be microgrid operators a whole new set of financial incentives to help bolster their business cases.
Legos of the Smart Grid
In fact, these bite-sized smart grid systems could be an inevitable part of the build out of the “super grid” envisioned by such smart grid champions as Al Gore. That’s because microgrids could help ease the “smart at the edges, dumb in the middle” problem recently described by Ray Gogel, president and COO of Current Group. Gogel told Forbes in February that all the smart meters, rooftop solar panels and other “nodes” on the edges of the grid will require much more robust communications and controls along the “middle mile” of distribution substations and feeder lines to operate effectively. Properly designed and integrated microgrids could aggregate many of these edge nodes into a single point of interconnection and interface, making the job of coordinating them in the middle that much easier.
Dave Pacyna, senior vice president of Siemens Energy’s North American transmission and distribution division, sees microgrids as a natural part of the evolution of the smart grid. Pacyna said in a January interview:
http://earth2tech.com/2010/02/17/microgrids-building-blocks-of-the-smart-grid/
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