microgrids

military microgrid?

Never-fail military microgrids are breaking new ground in distributed energy management. Now one of them is getting connected to the grid at large.[read more]

microgrid disruptions/shutterstock

What will be the disruptive technology that starts the slow erosion of commercial businesses away from traditional electric utilities? What technology will dramatically reshape today’s power grids? Microgrids.[read more]

microgrid

You can’t throw a stone at smart grid conference these days and not hit a panel talking about microgrids. The chatter is incessant, but the actual work done to date has been far more limited.[read more]

Air Force energy strategy

Unstable global energy supplies and greatly reduced federal funding might be the two biggest threats facing the US Air Force – but it looks like clean energy technology is the solution to both.[read more]

Lightning Bolt via Shutterstock

More than 8 million people along the U.S. East Coast were rendered powerless in the wake of October 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, for example. Each new large-scale natural disaster delivers its own unique cocktail of heartache and damage, but the need to modernize the electrical grid is a common denominator—growing only more glaring with each new setback.[read more]

goldenangel / Shutterstock.com

The Smart Grid can deliver significant changes to consumer interactions in electricity markets. Today, consumer enrollment in demand response (DR) programs is the typical form of participation with a focus on the production of negawatts. Among the most exciting possibilities for Smart Grid innovations are the opportunities for consumers to become prosumers – and participate as producers as well as consumers of energy in the distribution (low voltage) grid.[read more]

The final voyage of the Endeavour made its way to San Francisco and Silicon Valley on September 21, 2012.  It was a gloriously beautiful day, and many people turned out to bid farewell to the fifth and final space shuttle.  The shuttle program lasted thirty years, and has a remarkable record of accomplishments, such as being...[read more]

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) co-chairs of the recent Smart Grid study titled “The Future of the Electric Grid”  just visited Silicon Valley to discuss their report with investors and entrepreneurs.   If you haven’t read the study, I recommend it because it’s an interesting read.  The study co-...[read more]

The microgrid is defined in the Smart Grid Dictionary as “A small power system that integrates self-contained generation, distribution, sensors, energy storage, and energy management software with a seamless and synchronized connection to a utility power system and can operate independently as an island form that system.”  The...[read more]

Proponents of these technologies argue that they are capable of: Improving overall reliability on both sides of the grid/microgrid junctures Reducing operating costs Expediting introduction of these technologies into the distribution grid – the weakest part of the supply chain in the developed world. Offering cost effective and...[read more]

We take electricity for granted.  In the USA and other developed nations, we are wired up with electricity that is readily available.  Blackouts are infrequent, notwithstanding causes based in natural disasters or human error.   But for the 1.4 billion humans who have no access to electricity, every day is a blackout...[read more]

In addition to reducing carbon footprint, empowering customers to more cost-efficiently manage their energy usage and fueling new business opportunities, the Smart Grid offers tremendous promise in terms of improving the reliability and availability of electricity service. Increased reliance on “microgrids” is one way how.In a microgrid...[read more]

The clean energy sector is entering a phase of dramatic change in which business models are being transformed against a backdrop of regulatory uncertainty, as the industry emerges from a challenging period caused by the global economic downtown. Technologies and business structures that were once abandoned, are now being revived in several key sectors.[read more]

Microgrids are natural innovation zones for the Smart Grid because they have experimentation scalability and flexibility.  Smart utilities could create partnerships with academic and business campuses in their territories to deploy microgrids and study the most effective solutions for management of distributed generation.  Why...[read more]