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Making microgrids work: send in<br />
the <strong>Mar</strong>ines?<br />
By J. Michael Barrett,<br />
Center for Homeland<br />
Security and Resilience<br />
For several decades now<br />
electrical power experts<br />
have been making increasingly<br />
vocal statements<br />
about the utility and significant<br />
potential advantages of embracing<br />
localized power generation and distribution<br />
using microgrids, which<br />
are essentially miniaturized, selfcontained<br />
power grids serving a<br />
discrete set of users.<br />
Crucially, microgrids are small<br />
enough to offer a more manageable<br />
model for ensuring a stable<br />
and more resilient system, and they<br />
can also make the most of emergent<br />
technologies and the latest advances<br />
in distributed generation sources<br />
(such as solar, wind, etc.) while also<br />
spreading costs and sharing assets<br />
on a manageable scale.<br />
This means they could play a major<br />
role in the advent of the so-called<br />
smart grid as well as help to address<br />
a raft of growing cyber security<br />
threats against existing critical infrastructure.<br />
But while the technology<br />
is proven and workable business<br />
cases can be made,<br />
there nonetheless seems to<br />
be something holding back<br />
the concept from truly taking<br />
root. Is it time to send<br />
in the <strong>Mar</strong>ines?<br />
Ok, so not the <strong>Mar</strong>ines<br />
per se, but rather of the<br />
military more broadly, specifically<br />
by harnessing the Department of<br />
Defense’s operational necessity for<br />
energy surety and its enormous<br />
buying power? In other words, even<br />
though military, commercial, civic,<br />
scientific, industrial and other communities<br />
interested in the great potential<br />
of microgrids need to assess<br />
the practical, real-world benefits<br />
and associated costs and trade-offs<br />
involved in a smart, modern and resilient<br />
microgrid project, someone<br />
has to take the first step and help<br />
develop the market.<br />
Could the military lead the way by<br />
showing how cooperation, financing,<br />
planning and shared responsibility<br />
with the local community can<br />
be leveraged to strengthen the power<br />
grid for communities where vital<br />
national security functions overlap<br />
with civilian communities?<br />
If the resistance to microgrid<br />
15<br />
adoption is related mostly to the<br />
difficulty of overcoming marketplace<br />
inertia, is there a way that embracing<br />
the energy surety aspects<br />
of microgrids could make the Department<br />
of Defense more resilient<br />
against power supply disruptions<br />
while also harnessing the power of<br />
Public-Private Partnerships to help<br />
foster the nascent microgrid industry?<br />
This would serve a clear national<br />
security imperative as well as<br />
support economic growth in the important<br />
arena of tailored microgrids<br />
serving specific end-users.<br />
In practical terms, microgrids are<br />
best suited for locations servicing<br />
a discrete user base with relatively<br />
high energy needs and a recognized<br />
emphasis on energy surety. This includes<br />
users such as military bases,<br />
air and sea ports, manufacturing industrial<br />
parks, and research universities.<br />
For example, consider the following<br />
hypothetical set of end-users<br />
prevalent at multiple large military<br />
installations:<br />
• A military installation needing<br />
a high degree of energy security<br />
and resilience, but which also has<br />
available lands for locating solar<br />
arrays;