BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Microgrids: Very Expensive, Seriously Necessary

This article is more than 10 years old.

The state of Connecticut announced last week that it would build nine "microgrids" to deliver more reliable power, including at the police station in Bridgeport, the naval submarine base in Groton, the St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, and the campus of Wesleyan University. The cost to taxpayers: $18 million.

Some readers might say: $18 million? For, what, some backup generators? And what is a microgrid anyway?

It is no coincidence that Connecticut is pushing the envelope of power innovation. Last October, Hurricane Sandy knocked power out to 625,000 homes and businesses, revealing how inadequate the the power system is in the face of superstorms.  "Today marks another step forward for how we handle extreme weather," said Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy.

A microgrid is a lot more than just backup power, as I learned while reporting "The Power of Microgrids," the latest installment of my infographic energy column in Sierra magazine. It is a system that blends power from the utilities with local power whether there is an outage or not. Few large-scale examples of microgrids yet exist, but here is what one is intended to do. It reduces emissions by scaling down the power arriving from faraway, carbon-spewing coal or natural-gas plants, while adding in local sources like fuel cells, biomass plants, and solar and wind power installations. It prioritizes power needs so that during a blackout, the most crucial elements stay on (like data centers) while the less important ones (like coat closets) are let go. It gives a user some some control over the power supply instead of just begging to the power company. And it does all this autonomously and without a flicker in the lights.

Sounds great, but it won't be cheap. The $18 million price tag for Connecticut's new microgrids doesn't even include the new sources of power they will require. The networked power system of the 21st Century is mind-bogglingly complicated, and is still being invented. Navigant Research recently projected that the market for microgrids would grow in revenue from $10 billion this year to $40 billion by 2020, partly because microgrids "require greater investment than previously recognized."

Looking further into the future, another compelling purpose exists for microgrids. It involves the spread of renewable energy.

With the growing popularity of solar leasing from companies like Sunrun and SolarCity and the dropping costs of solar panels, rooftop solar is becoming more and more common. This has utilities and power officials worried. A number of prominent power players, including the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Pepco (the utility for Washington, D.C.) and the state of California, have announced that if the penetration of local energy exceeds 15 percent, the power supply may become unstable. (See this presentation by Washington D.C. startup Pareto Energy for details.)

No neighborhood in America is anywhere close to getting 15 percent of its power from local energy. But it is not hard to imagine that day arriving a decade from now, when renewable energy is more commonplace. Our power supply may be more local, more resilient and weather-resistant, and produce a lot less of the pollutant CO2.

This raises intriguing questions about how a neighborhood will own and manage its power supply. The editors at Sierra and I attempted to envision that future, which includes widespread rooftop solar panels, community renewable-energy projects, and electricity being stored in electric cars in the garage.

We are a very long way away from that prospect now. But there's no question that if it does come to pass, the microgrid will play an essential part.