“microgrids: Empowering Communities Through Localized Energy Generation” – With the increasing number of severe weather events worldwide due to climate change, many communities are focusing on ways to increase community resilience, including their electricity grid. Solar energy development through microgrids can benefit communities looking for ways to build resilience to the climate crisis. Ranging from a simple generator to small solar arrays, a microgrid works on the larger electrical grid, but can “island” in the event of a power outage or attack and can operate without the “parent” grid. Building and integrating the microgrid into the community network builds safety, environmental sustainability, creates jobs, and is more energy efficient than fossil fuel sources.
Microgrids address a myriad of issues for municipalities, including creating opportunities for economic development, improving infrastructure, reducing budget costs, and improving public safety. According to Guidehouse’s report, The Renewable Energy Economic Benefits of Microgrids, the deployment of microgrids across the country will create nearly 500,000 jobs over the next decade. In California alone, microgrids have created 4,670 jobs and contributed $1.76 billion to business. Microgrids are not the only advantages of economic opportunity; technology can support community efforts to build resilience to climate change.
“microgrids: Empowering Communities Through Localized Energy Generation”
Due to the increase in severe weather events and unprecedented crises across the country due to climate change, building a climate-resilient community is more important than ever. In 2017 alone, there were 3,536 blackouts in the United States, affecting 36.7 million people, more than 10 percent of America’s population. In February 2021, Texas experienced unusually cold temperatures that caused statewide blackouts as the power grid was unable to function in the extreme cold. Elsewhere in the United States, record high temperatures are prevailing during the summer months, and extreme heat events are increasing across the country. According to the National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS), extreme heat is one of the leading causes of weather-related deaths in the United States.
The New Grids On The Block
These extreme weather events put a strain on the electrical grid. With consumer energy consumption expected to reach an all-time high during the summer months, extreme weather poses a challenge to the nation’s electrical infrastructure. Supply chain issues pose even more hurdles for U.S. power utilities as power outages continue and supply chain delays can affect the timely restoration of power. By implementing renewable energy sources, including microgrids, communities can diversify their supply chains and allow for fewer interruptions in the delivery of energy to consumers.
Puerto Rico offers a great example of using microgrids to build post-disaster resilience. A post-hurricane grid restart that relies on microgrids has been developed. The government aims to have each of the island’s eight areas served by a micro-grid. These smaller, localized networks support the energy independence of these communities and are economically beneficial as they can help insulate businesses from power outages.
Microgrids use less energy than the core grid, reducing energy waste. This allows for finer voltage regulation and empowers local government officials to make timely, informed decisions for constituents. Independently governed and operated communities, such as California’s special districts, can raise revenue and finance small-scale energy infrastructure projects with a board vote. More than 30 other states have special districts, created in the 1880s to enable local governments to meet the unique needs of their citizens, such as water service in the first special district, Turlock.
Local governments have also used microgrids to ensure public safety and community resilience. In Montgomery County, Maryland, after widespread power outages due to severe storms, the county is deploying microgrids at key utility facilities to ensure operations in the event of a main power grid failure.
Microgrids: Where Sustainability And Resiliency Meet
Microgrids are one of many ways communities can work to mitigate the crisis, build resilience to climate change and promote energy independence. In addition, there is an opportunity for communities to start investing in or building their renewable energy portfolios, which can be easier and cheaper than larger scale renewable energy projects and can be a viable form of job creation and GDP generation for jurisdictions. Overall, municipalities interested in crisis mitigation and renewable energy should explore the possibilities of developing microgrids in their community.
A program funded by the US Solar Energy Technology Office (SETO), SolSmart provides free consultations and recognizes communities that have solar infrastructure in place so that citizens can switch to solar energy. To date, more than 460 cities and counties across the United States have been recognized for making solar easier, faster and more affordable for their communities. Other sources supporting the development of the microgrid are provided by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, electric companies, state support programs and non-profit organizations.
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How Iowa City, Iowa used incentives, encouraging messages and local commitment to continuously reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Pdf) Micro Grids Empowering Communities And Enabling Transformation In Africa
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Siemens And Juwi Enter Strategic Partnership For Microgrids In The Mining Industry
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By G V Brahmendra Kumar G V Brahmendra Kumar Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar and K Palanisamy K Palanisamy Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar *
Received: October 14, 2020 / Revised: December 7, 2020 / Accepted: December 14, 2020 / Published: December 16, 2020
Localized Aggregation Of Diverse Energy Sources For Rural Electrification Using Microgrids
This paper reviews the energy storage participation of ancillary services in a microgrid (MG) system. MG is used as a basic enabling solution to combine renewable energy generators and storage systems to meet multiple needs expertly. However, due to the unpredictable and sporadic characteristics of renewable energy, innovative tasks arise in the consistent process of MGs. The energy management of MGs containing renewable energy sources (RES) can be improved by energy storage. Energy storage systems (ESS) have many benefits, such as balancing supply and demand, smoothing renewable energy generation, improving power quality and reliability, and facilitating ancillary services such as voltage and frequency control in the MG plant. The integration of ESS technology is a solution to the challenges that energy distribution networks face in achieving better performance. By simplifying the smooth and robust energy balance within the MG, storage devices align energy production with consumption. MG and its multidisciplinary portrait of current MG drivers, tasks, real-world applications, and upcoming views are presented in this paper.
Improper regulation and ongoing environmental problems in the electricity industry, as well as increasing energy consumption, have led to an increase in the installed capacity of distributed generation (DG) sources and energy storage systems (ESS). These sources include various technologies for combined heat and power or pure electricity production, such as microturbines, diesel engines and fuel cells, as well as photovoltaics (PV), hydro turbines, small wind turbines, etc. Balancing the load and performance of renewable energy sources, the stored energy is regulated, in a time range, reduces the total charge of the energy at this level of mutual coupling [1]. Currently, the smart grid is the leading idea in the electricity industry. The main goal of smart grid development is to provide digital societies with consistent, high-quality electricity in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner. The most significant features of a smart grid are advanced structures that simplify the interconnection of multiple AC and DC generation systems, energy storage operations, and multiple AC and DC loads with optimal asset utilization and operational efficiency. To achieve these goals, power electronics technology plays a significant role in connecting various sources and loads to smart grids [2].
Recently, microgrid (MG) technology has received considerable attention
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