By creating a microgrid with other local businesses on the grid, including a bakery, hardware store, and pharmacy, Adjuntas could gain energy security during emergencies, all while starving the fossil fuel industry by unplugging those with the highest energy demands.
If you wanted to build a standalone microgrid in Africa, powered by local renewable resources, and make it reliable enough to run a neonatal intensive care clinic, how would you do it?
Researchers estimate that the global fossil fuel industry is subsidised to a tune of $5.3 trillion (6.5% of global GDP) every year yet this raises few eyebrows. We believe that subsidies for energy access related projects are not an outlandish proposition and in fact, if implemented correctly could be the catalyst that tips the nascent rural off-grid sector into rapid scalability.
Millions of people die prematurely of indoor pollution and other consequences of energy poverty. But there is a way to empower the powerless: with renewable energy microgrids and decentralized technologies.
Tesla is only the most prominent company to bypass the conventional avenues of rebuilding to install renewable power and batteries. Other companies and nonprofits have been marshalling resources to fill the void left by federal relief efforts. German renewable energy outfit Sonnen has pledged to build microgrids in priority areas, working with local partner Pura Energia to install donated batteries to power first aid and community centers. Another group, Resilient Power Puerto Rico, is distributing solar generators to remote communities, where they can serve as hubs for immediate necessities like charging phones and filtering water.
“Microgrids, not large-scale power generation, will be the most effective way to provide electricity to those still unconnected,” Wilder says. Microgrids are essentially small power grids customized for single communities.
The energy market in the US is getting more diversified as consumers shift their habits by producing more electricity autonomously while increasing environmental regulation is impacting the main grid.
Small-scale microgrids are increasingly seen as the most promising way to bring electricity to the 1.3 billion people worldwide who currently lack it.
Rethinking the grid is quickly emerging as one of the hottest topics.
Prepare for the arrival of the renewable energy microgrid.
“The move to the smart grid is impossible to achieve in one big operational mass,”…“Breaking it into bite-sized pieces — this is the future of the microgrid market.”
A recent data roundup by renewable energy industry analyst Paul Gipe shows that variable renewables are meeting much larger percentages of grid power than previously thought possible in some European countries.