It has been very efficient with fast start-up in less than five minutes. The City worked with Tallahassee Memorial Hospital as the primary beneficiary.
#MICRO GRIDS MAP GENERATOR#
The generator provides power directly to the substation and can serve. The solution was to produce power at the substation. Yet building another transmission line in the area was daunting – there was no room, lots of trees, and a high cost. Station #12 only has one transmission line along the adjacent road. There is a substation and distribution line. In a May 2020 interview with David Byrne, Assistant General Manager of the City of Tallahassee electric utility, Byrne described how the power station near Tallahassee Memorial Hospital was designed to be back-up supply for the services there. Municipal electric utilities are not subject to the same regulations as investor-owned utilities, and therefore may have more flexibility on using microgrids. For example, they could combine multiple customers to supply resiliency on a larger scale that customers could not build for themselves and gain the benefits of economy of scale. It does appear that it is worthwhile to explore microgrids and utilities could use their access to customers to creatively employ microgrid solutions. How can distributed energy assets be included in the rate base? If there is a system balancing aspect to them, does it alter their classification? They need to define how energy storage, which can be classified as both energy load and generation, should be treated. But the regulations regarding how distribution utilities can interact with them may need to be revised. Regulations are a key determining factor on how quickly the opportunities can be realized. Who pays for them? Who owns them? How can utilities negotiate the complex regulatory environment to include them into the rate base? What’s the benefit to ratepayers if a utility builds a microgrid for a small number of customers? Also, the financial picture of microgrids is cloudy. Thus, a loss of stability to the grid as the percentage of inverter-based sources increases is an issue. However, the addition of distributed energy to the grid may lead to uncontrollable step loads, harmonics, power imbalances and other issues. Some primary benefits are: solutions for system bottlenecks resiliency/reliability of power to customers grid voltage and frequency support and reduced system losses by providing generation closer to loads. Resiliency is a driving force behind microgrid development.
#MICRO GRIDS MAP PLUS#
There are a few – solar plus storage systems, such as the SunSmart E-Shelters program at the University of Central Florida. Microgrids are of special interest in Florida for power recovery of critical facilities after major storm events. Ī microgrid is a distributed energy resource – powered by a local generation source, be it a renewable source such as solar or wind or by a diesel generator, natural gas microturbines, or a biomass turbine and generators – that can be islanded or operated without the energy grid. Utility partial or complete ownership of microgrids rose 400 percent between 20. Distributed energy and associated microgrids are at a competitive price point, leading a powerful trend driven by utility stakeholders, electric vehicle development, environmental pressures, smart cities initiatives and smart devices (the internet of things). A host of advantages comes with this involvement, including corporate responsibility for fostering low-carbon renewable energy generation and improved system reliability. Utilities are in a position to thrive in the microgrid trend. Also regulatory clarity generally is needed. Legislatures in disaster-prone areas may want to consider special treatment where utilities provide microgrids. We recognize that this is not a simple matter. Where there are benefits to the grid, these benefits should be recognized and compensated accordingly. In our opinion, the advantages of the microgrid should be considered. Regulatory issues are surfacing, primarily focused on the principle of the cost causer paying for a benefit, rather than the entire body of ratepayers paying for it. More end users will stay online with more microgrids distributed throughout the system. Without microgrids and distributed energy, all the system eggs are in a few baskets, so to speak. One large event will take out all the users downstream of the event. A centralized system with large power plants, main transmission lines and then the distribution feeders means the risk to the overall system is centralized. When the generation of electricity is moved out to the end user, the risk to the end users losing power is less. In areas where natural disasters are common, microgrids make a lot of sense.
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