A review of microgrid development in the United States – A decade of progress on policies, demonstrations, controls, and software tools

Microgrids have become increasingly popular in the United States. Supported by favorable federal and local policies, microgrid projects can provide greater energy stability and resilience within a project site or community. This paper reviews major federal, state, and utility-level policies driving microgrid development in the United States. Representative U.S. demonstration projects are selected and their technical characteristics and non-technical features are introduced. The paper discusses trends in the technology development of microgrid systems as well as microgrid control methods and interactions within the electricity market. Software tools for microgrid design, planning, and performance analysis are illustrated with each tool's core capability. Finally, the paper summarizes the successes and lessons learned during the recent expansion of the U.S. microgrid industry that may serve as a reference for other countries developing their own microgrid industries

Electricity Network Scenarios for Great Britain in 2050

The next fifty years are likely to see great developments in the technologies deployed in electricity systems, with consequent changes in the structure and operation of power networks. This paper, which forms a chapter in the forthcoming book Future Electricity Technologies and Systems, develops and presents six possible future electricity industry scenarios for Great Britain, focussed on the year 2050. The paper draws upon discussions of important technologies presented by expert authors in other chapters of the book to consider the impact of different combinations of key influences on the nature of the power system in 2050. For each scenario there is a discussion of the effects of the key parameters, with a description and pictorial illustration. Summary tables identify the role of the technologies presented in other chapters of the book, and list important figures of interest, such as the capacity and energy production of renewable generation technologies

Breaking Barriers to Renewable Energy Production in the North American Arctic

As climate change continues to affect our lives, the communities at the northern extremes of our world have witnessed the changes most profoundly. In the Arctic, where climate change is melting permafrost and causing major shoreline erosion, remote communities in Alaska and northern Canada are particularly vulnerable. Furthermore, these communities have limited access to electrical grids and bear oppressive energy costs relying on diesel generators. While some communities have started to incorporate renewable energy into their hamlets and villages, progress has generally been limited with the notable exception of Canada’s Northwest Territories and some coastal communities in western Alaska. During its latest stint as chair of the Arctic Council, the United States outlined community renewable energy in the Arctic as one of its primary goals. This Note focuses on regulatory and practical policy solutions to make that goal possible. It draws on examples from industrialized countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, as well as examples from developing countries, such as India and Peru, to examine solutions for the technical, economic, regulatory, and community engagement problems that Arctic communities in Alaska face when setting up new energy projects. Additionally, this Note describes the current political structure of Alaskan villages under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and argues that Alaska Native Corporations should play a role in developing clean, cheap energy sources for their shareholders. Finally, this Note argues that public-private partnerships, like the non-profit Arctic Energy Alliance in the Northwest Territories, shows that clean, renewable energy projects for rural Arctic villages are possible throughout the Arctic. This Note draws lessons from other communities throughout the world and attempts to apply them to the unique situations that remote northern Alaska communities face regarding access to clean, renewable energy

A rolling horizon optimization framework for the simultaneous energy supply and demand planning in microgrids

This work focuses on the development of optimization-based scheduling strategies for the coordination of microgrids. The main novelty of this work is the simultaneous management of energy production and energy demand within a reactive scheduling approach to deal with the presence of uncertainty associated to production and consumption. Delays in the nominal energy demands are allowed under associated penalty costs to tackle flexible and fluctuating demand profiles. In this study, the basic microgrid structure consists of renewable energy systems (photovoltaic panels, wind turbines) and energy storage units. Consequently, a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) formulation is presented and used within a rolling horizon scheme that periodically updates input data information