POWER August 2017 - 39

RESILIENCY
erating, under development, and proposed
microgrid capacity and 126 new projects. "
Navigant highlights three noteworthy new
projects: a 100-MW energy storage project in
India's Andhra Pradesh state; 83 MW of solar
photovoltaic (PV) and storage in California's
Imperial Valley; and an 80-MW remote
project in Newcastle, Australia, that includes
diesel generation as well as solar PV and energy
storage. The research firm notes, " Diesel
capacity remains the leading generation
technology in terms of total capacity, though
its lead is shrinking. "
According to Navigant, North America
is the leading region in operating microgrid
capacity, with 54% of the worldwide market
share. " The United States leads all countries
in terms of both capacity and total number of
projects, " says Navigant.
Energy storage is a key to microgrids, providing
resiliency, reliability, and if necessary
independence from the conventional big grid,
also known as " islanding. " Coupled with solar
or wind, storage overcomes the intermittency
problem of the renewable generation.
Some analysts have dubbed energy storage
" the great enabler. "
Costs of solar PV and battery storage are
both declining. Bloomberg New Energy Finance
in May issued a report- " 2Q 2017
Frontier Power Market Outlook " -that predicts
2017 could be a big year for microgrids.
" Storage companies and technology giants
continue to lead the charge on solar and storage
microgrids while island communities are
test-beds for piloting new systems and ideas, "
according to the report, with " energy storage
companies such as Tesla, Fluidic Energy, and
Electro Power Systems continuing to deploy
significant capacity in the first quarter. Specifically,
Tesla's island microgrids represent
36% of the company's total power storage
capacity deployed to date. "
Successful Projects
Microgrids are beginning to solve a variety
of power problems worldwide. One of
the newest is a project by Italy's giant Enel
energy firm, located on the edge of Chile's
sunny and exceedingly dry Atacama Desert.
Commissioned on May 31, the project
merges 125 kW (peak) of solar PV with
two energy storage systems, one based on
hydrogen and the other lithium-ion battery
storage. Enel describes this as a " plug-andplay "
approach, which " can be particularly
useful to ensure energy access in remote,
poorly electrified areas. " The Chilean project
meets part of the electric load at a camp
that hosts more than 600 workers at Enel's
Cerro Pabellon 48-MW geothermal power
plant, also recently commissioned.
A microgrid project in Northern Ireland,
August 2017 | POWER
Remember the Smart Grid? What Happened?
Ten years ago the next big thing for the
electricity industry in the U.S. was the
smart grid, which would turn our one-way
electric power supply system into a twoway,
interactive process to capture opportunities
to save energy and shape loads,
benefiting providers and customers.
Information would flow from customers
to the distribution utility and back.
Living spaces would be transformed and
tuned in through smart appliances that
could be interconnected to the electric
company, saving energy and providing
convenience. Smart grids were touted
by the Electric Power Research Institute
(EPRI) and forward-thinking electric
company executives such as Jim Rogers,
then CEO of Duke Energy.
A major federal law, the Energy Independence
and Security Act, which President
George W. Bush signed in 2007, contained
a section (Title XIII) aimed at providing
a legal framework for smart grid development.
The smart grid seemed on its way
to widespread implementation, with wild
predictions about its rapid spread.
The smart grid began with smart meters.
And that's about where it has stalled.
A study released in June by the Smart
developed by AES, installed 10 MW of battery
storage integrated with the existing 660MW
coal, oil, and gas-fueled Kilroot plant
near Belfast. The battery array was installed
in a vacant turbine hall at the plant. The project
was POWER's Smart Grid Award winner
in 2016.
This year's Smart Grid Award also goes
to a microgrid project: Ameren's Technology
Application Center microgrid in Champaign,
Ill., developed by Chicago-based S&C Electric
Co. The project consists of two 500-kW
natural gas generators, 125 kW of PV, and 50
kW of wind, combined with 250 kW of lithium-ion
battery storage (see " Ameren's TAC
Microgrid Seamlessly Integrates Distributed
Energy Resources, " in this issue).
But microgrid projects don't have to be
associated with macro-sized investor-owned
utilities such as Enel and Ameren or the stateowned
Northern Ireland system. Asked about
microgrids, Sue Kelly, CEO of the American
Public Power Association (APPA), representing
America's municipal utilities, is wont to
say, " Been there. Done that. Have the T-shirt. "
Mike Hyland, APPA's senior vice presiwww.powermag.com
Grid
Consumer Collaborative found that
70% of U.S. electricity consumers are
aware of the term " smart grid, " but only
4% participate.
Utilities have installed millions of smart
meters, though often facing consumer resistance.
The benefits of the technology
appear to flow almost entirely to the utility,
while customers pay for the equipment
in their bills.
Security is also a concern. The British
cybersecurity website SC Media, reporting
on a study by the consulting firm PwC,
commented, " Cyber-security and data privacy
are increasingly becoming more recognized
as risks to systems. Additionally,
the growth of smart, connected propositions
exposes new systems and controls to
threats from external attackers. "
" It's rolling out much more slowly
than people expected, " Harvard Business
School Professor Rebecca M.
Henderson has said of the smart grid
in her papers on the subject. " Consumers
seem less interested in its capabilities.
The regulation regime
is
difficult. People have been talking
about the market for 10 years, but it's
not yet where it's supposed to be. "
dent for engineering services, told POWER
that municipal utilities were born as standalone
microgrid systems. They didn't start
interconnecting into the big grid until it
became clear that interconnection was less
expensive and more reliable than self-generation
and distribution. The municipal utility
in Easton, Maryland, Hyland said, didn't interconnect
with the Delmarva Peninsula grid
until 1974, and remains able to disconnect
today from the grid and serve its loads alone.
Easton can bid its excess power into the PJM
Interconnection wholesale power market.
The small town of Minster, in west-central
Ohio, with a population of 2,800 and home to
the world's largest yogurt plant (operated by
Dannon), boasts the first municipally owned
solar PV and storage microgrid project in the
U.S. The 3-MW solar array combined with a
3-MWh lithium-ion battery storage system,
financed by Half Moon Ventures and engineered
by S&C, will allow the village to
purchase below-market power from the solar
field, defer about $350,000 of transmission
and distribution costs, improve power quality,
and shave peak demand.
39
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POWER August 2017

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