Microgrids as Resilient Energy Infrastructure

Microgrid at Princeton University

utilitydive.com - March 20, 2018

The National Academy of Sciences defines “resilience” as the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events.  Since the September 2017 DOE NOPR to FERC, the energy industry has been working overtime to better define resilience.  FERC unanimously set aside the “90 days on-site fuel storage” provision espoused by DOE and opened a new docket (AD18-7) to more fully examine the current state of grid resiliency, asking the nation’s seven RTO’s and ISO’s to provide their definition of resiliency relative to the bulk power system by March 9.  Those ISO/RTO comments reflected regional variances as expected while sharing a common thread of the paradigm shift underway from central station power plants to more distributed generation . . . 

 . . . Once again, in 2017, the district energy/CHP microgrid serving Houston’s Texas Medical Center stood up to Hurricane Harvey to keep 48 hospitals and research facilities operational throughout the storm.   It’s time that this proven approach to energy resiliency is more fully considered and freed from the constraints of arcane, anachronistic policy or regulatory impediments.

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