Microgrids within a utility’s grid can collectively deliver utility-scale distributed generation by selling excess energy to utilities.  However, microgrids can also supply what I call “virtual” generation by disconnecting from the utility grid and functioning as energy islands during peak usage times.  This is an extreme form of a Demand Response Program, but it can be done at a scale that eliminates the need for future utility investment in generation assets.  It is quite a shift for utilities to no longer build to peak electricity needs – but the Smart Grid and microgrids in particular – can help utilities evolve planning functions to asset optimization.  And since many microgrids incorporate renewable generation and storage, they are a great way for utilities to add distributed renewable generation and storage management into their asset investment plans.     

I was at the National Electricity Forum last week and asked the panelists discussing a new electricity infrastructure about the assumptions they were making to include distributed generation and microgrids into their plans.  The bad news is that they really aren’t making plans for distributed generation.  They are making plans that assume that all new generation is remote from users, and requires investment in transmission facilities, including new lines and new routes.  That may happen, but it won’t happen quickly, and only at great political and capital costs.  There’s a fast track for the Smart Grid, and it is based on wide scale distributed generation and microgrids.  Distributed generation and microgrids can happen much faster than many other benefits of Smart Grid solutions, and lead the way for an energy ecosystem in which there are many more winners and fewer losers.

To learn more about microgrids, join me at the Sustainable Silicon Valley/Santa Clara University Smart Microgrid event on February 23.  You’ll hear about this university’s project to upgrade their existing microgrid to a smart microgrid and enjoy thought-provoking discussion from a great panel of industry leaders – I’m looking forward to being the moderator.

Mark your calendars for the Metering, Billing/MDM America conference in San Diego on March 7-10.  This is a great show to learn about metering of electricity, gas and water, and the latest technologies to make dumb meters into smart meters.

Business and academic campuses are excellent candidates for microgrid installations, and many already fulfill some capabilities in the definition above.  Microgrids can serve as living laboratories for the proliferation of technologies ranging from generation (especially renewables), transmission, distribution, building energy management, and data center energy efficiency.  Beyond the technologies, microgrids provide perfect settings for different communications strategies and outreach programs to encourage smart energy behaviors.  College campuses also have the added benefits of aligning microgrid projects with academic departments ranging from electrical, mechanical, chemical, and civil engineering to information and communications technologies (ICT) and public policy, economics, and behavioral science disciplines.  Just imagine the opportunities that exist at these intersections of need and innovation.

Here are three areas where I’d like to see academic campuses get involved:

1.  Data center efficiencies.  Cloud computing, the continued adoption of the Internet and new social media applications mean that more data centers will be built going forward, and they can’t be the energy hogs they are now.  Can new data center designs take advantage of the waste heat instead of expending energy to cool it or exhaust it out of the buildings?  Can new technologies make it useful heat instead of waste in both new and legacy data centers?

2.  Regulatory incentives for microgrid interconnection to utility grids.  The majority of states today do not make it easy to tie microgrids into the utility grids.  Standby charges are also disincentives, forcing microgrid operators to purchase standby power from utilities in case the microgrid generation shuts down.  What are the better models to encourage microgrid development while ensuring the overall reliability of power delivery for all utility grid customers?  What legislative, regulatory and tax policies work best to accelerate development of microgrids? 

3.  Social media applications.  The potential of social media to educate and influence human behavior regarding energy awareness and consumption is largely unexplored.  Students are natural adopters of social media, and are a great research population for companies interested in measuring the impacts of these applications into overall energy efficiency and energy management programs.  How can social media be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?  What programs will appeal to the broadest range of microgrid energy consumers?

To learn more about microgrids, join me at the Sustainable Silicon Valley/Santa Clara University Smart Microgrid event on February 23 to hear about this university’s project to upgrade their existing microgrid to a smart microgrid.

If your interests are focused on electric meters, the Metering, Billing/MDM America show in San Diego on March 7-10 has a conference agenda that delivers valuable information on the latest advances in meters and more.  This annual event draws innovating utilities, meter manufacturers, and thought leaders to discuss not only theory but reality in Smart Grid deployments.