This article was originally published on March 27, 2020 on the Microgrid Knowledge website.

Original Author: Elisa Wood

History tells us that disasters tend to spur new interest in Microgrids. This pandemic is no exception as COVID-19 strains hospitals, data centers, and food distribution and delivery system, making power outages unthinkable.

A quote in the Wall Street Journal by Peggy Noonan, being widely circulated on social media, sums up how important electricity is right now:

“There are a million warning out there on a million serious things. We add one: Everything works – and will continue to work – as long as we have electricity. It’s what keeps the lights on, the oxygen flowing, the information going. Everything is the grid, the grid, the grid.”

Underscoring this idea the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners yesterday urged state authorities to designate utility workers as essential to the nation’s critical infrastructure during the pandemic.

In addition, many utilities and state commissions throughout the US have taken quick action to prohibit power shut offs to customers who are behind on their payments. That takes care of power due to economics, but it’s not so easy to control outages brought by nature. And unfortunately both hurricane season and California’s wildfire season are threatening to collide with the pandemic.

Short and long term prognosis

“Human contact is restricted, there are a lot of people ill, the hospitals are overflowing. The last thing anyone would want to worry about is the availability of power supply,” said Shashank Pande, software solutions architect for utility control center solutions at Siemens Digital Grid. “Microgrids are especially important form the resiliency standpoint in this situation.”

Businesses, institutions, utilities and others install microgrids for varied reasons; some are motivated by economics, others environment. But energy resiliency is the technology’s signature value. Microgrids, which operate 24/7/365, provide electric reliability by islanding from the grid during a power outage and using their own on-site resources to supply power to their customers.

The microgrid industry was experiencing fast growth before COVID-19. Now microgrid developers report project delays because workers are in isolation, supply chains are disrupted, and society is frozen with uncertainty. But they see the delays as temporary and expect progress to resume, as the pandemic drives consumers and businesses to seek greater energy security. This is a familiar pattern for the microgrid sector, one that often follows major hurricanes, wildfires and other natural disasters.

“In the long term we expect that all the issues that are driving both energy efficiency, microgrids and distributed energy resources (DER) will still be in place,” said Michael Byrnes, chief operating officer of Veolia subsidiary SourceOne. “For the short to medium range effects, I believe we will have to work our way through the Corona-recession which may make people reorganize their investment priorities. “

He added that so far, customers are advancing their bids and designs for microgrids and DER projects that were already in process prior to the Covid 19 slowdowns.

“Hopefully the unprecedented world wide impact and cooperation that we are seeing will get people thinking more about climate change and how fragile the planet really is,” Byrnes said.

Byrnes expects to see more organizations outsourcing their energy facility operations following the pandemic, a service Veolia offers. This approach is common in the microgrid industry, particularly under energy-as-a-service or performance contracting.

“In times of a crisis like this, it becomes more obvious than ever that people want a utility professional taking care of their utilities while they concentrate on their core business,” Byrnes said.

Crisis requires brains, Microgrids brains

Siemens’ Pande expects to see more attention given to the sophistication of microgrid controllers, the ‘brain’ of the microgrid which Siemens offers. The controller not only allows the microgrid to island, but also engage in sophisticated energy management. Some controllers are smarter than others and more automated.

“During unusual times such as this, the demand pattern dramatically changes, e.g. maybe part of the commercial operation is closed and there is dramatic load reduction. Or some emergency operation is added and there is a dramatic increase in demand,” he said.

Microgrid owners need to evaluate their controllers to be sure they work correctly, given that they may have been designed for a different demand and usage profile, he said. Smart microgrids adjust, themselves, to the changed conditions.

Close eye on hospitals

Hospitals are an important customer for the microgrid sector, given their life and death need for power. Microgrid companies are keeping a close eye on how the pandemic impacts healthcare energy usage.

Bloom Energy, for example, has been reaching out to its partners in healthcare to see how increased ventilator use changes electric demand.

“If you get a surge in ventilators, you’re going to need more electricity. That’s one reason we’re maintaining our production line — so that we can be here to support and maintain and even install if we need to, energy servers and microgrids, in response to the crisis,” said Susan Brennan, chief operations officer at Bloom Energy.

Unfortunately, keen interest in microgrids often emerges only after a disaster, too late to correct the damage wrought by the most recent power outage. Superstorm Sandy in the Northeast US, Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and last year’s wildfire related power shut offs in California mark a few examples.

So as the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps across the US, microgrid companies are preparing to help: collecting information, navigating a tricky economic environment, and poised for what they’ve become accustomed to — a post-disaster refocus on the value of microgrids.

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  • System Size

    173.6kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $28,483 Annually

  • Utility Provider

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  • Connection Type

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  • Environmental Equivalents

    184,864 Pounds of Coal

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    26kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $4,238 Annually

  • Utility Provider

    Two Rivers Water & Light

  • Connection Type

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  • Environmental Equivalents

    2,411,958 Smartphones Charged

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    23.8kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $3,716 Annually

  • Utility Provider

    Alliant Energy

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    1,948 Pounds of Coal

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  • System Size

    197.6kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $22,293 Annually

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metered

  • Environmental Equivalents

    20,695 Gallons of Gas

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  • System Size

    149.5kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $23,913 Annually

  • Utility Provider

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  • Connection Type

    Net Metered

  • Environmental Equivalents

    1.8 Tanker Trucks of Gas

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  • System Size

    123kw

  • Estimated Savings

  • Utility Provider

    Madison Gas & Electric

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    13,709,514 Smartphones Charged

At A Glance

  • System Size

    389kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $56,681 Annually

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metered

  • Environmental Equivalents

    44,398,424 Smartphones Charged

At A Glance

  • System Size

    133.2kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $1,114,935

  • Utility Provider

    Madison Gas & Electric

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    14,727 Gallons of Gas

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    25.7kw

  • Estimated Savings

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    26,293 Pounds of Coal

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  • System Size

    26kw

  • Estimated Savings

  • Utility Provider

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  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

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    28.86kw

  • Estimated Savings

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metered

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    43.6kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $151,039

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metered

  • Environmental Equivalents

    4,817,623 Smartphones Charged

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    73.84kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $329,713

  • Utility Provider

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  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

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    64.845kw

  • Estimated Annual Savings

    $21,442

  • Utility Provider

    WPS

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    Parallel Generation

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    133kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $386,522

  • Utility Provider

    Alliant Energy

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    12,550 Gallons of Gas

At A Glance

  • System Size

    26.6kw

  • Estimated Anual Savings

    $3,953

  • Utility Provider

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  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    12,578 Pounds of Coal

At A Glance

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    128.7kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $513,821

  • Utility Provider

    Manitowoc Public Utilites

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    13,964,512 Smartphones Charged

At A Glance

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    45.5kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $275,531

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    4,679,952 Smartphones Charged

At A Glance

  • System Size

    1.825 MW

  • Estimated Savings

    $103,000 Annually

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Direct Sell Rate Tariff

  • Environmental Equivalents

    1,740,000 ton of CO2 emissions

At A Glance

  • System Size

    388.8kw

  • Annual Savings

    $51,288

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metering

  • Environmental Equivalents

    26,104 gallons of gasoline consumed. 22,789 gallons of diesel consumed. 256,673 pounds of coal burned. 3.1 tanker trucks' worth of gasoline.

At A Glance

  • System Size

    388.9kw

  • Annual Savings

    $51,340

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metering

  • Environmental Equivalents

    26,135 gallons of gasoline consumed. 22,815 gallons of diesel consumed. 256,973 pounds of coal burned. 3.1 tanker trucks' worth of gasoline.

At A Glance

  • System Size

    299.3kw

  • Annual Savings

    $42,934

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metering

  • Environmental Equivalents

    20,076 gallons of gasoline consumed. 17,526 gallons of diesel consumed information. 197,404 pounds of coal burned.

At A Glance

  • System Size

    50.7 kW - DC

  • Estimated Savings

    $10,329

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Line Side/Parallel Generation (CGS-NM)

  • Environmental Equivalents

    361,853lbs of coal burned annually

At A Glance

  • System Size

    31.87 kW

  • Estimated Savings

    $4,998 Anually

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Monthly Net Metering (CGS-NM)

  • Environmental Equivalents

    CO2 Emissions: 22.6 Metric Tons 2,341 Gallons of Gasoline

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    370kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $1,053,732

  • Utility Provider

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  • Connection Type

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  • Environmental Equivalents

    401,786 lbs. of Coal or 44,218,770 smartphones charged.

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  • System Size

    389kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $1,190,164

  • Utility Provider

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  • Connection Type

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  • Environmental Equivalents

    384,108 lbs. of Coal or 42,273,187 smartphones charged