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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;

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