What drives microgrid development?

Resilience, efficiency, sustainability, flexibility, security, and reliability are key drivers for microgrid developments. These factors motivate the need for integrated models and tools for microgrid planning, design, and operations at higher and higher levels of complexity.

What role do microgrids play in delivering resiliency and economic benefits?

For example, the role of microgrids that encompass DERs for delivering reliability and resiliency benefits to the grid and bringing economic benefits to the DERs is in early stages of development with the REPAIR tool co-funded by the Microgrids R&D program. Market rules and participation options are constantly evolving.

How can microgrids improve the reliability of distribution and transmission systems?

One approach to producing this technology is to demonstrate how microgrids, especially networked microgrids, can help to improve the reliability of distribution and transmission systems by providing them with reserves, i.e., capacity reserve, operational reserve, regulation reserve, etc.

What is a microgrid institutional framework?

The institutional framework includes regulatory paradigms governing microgrid ownership and investment models, consumer protections, safety, and equity, as well as technical codes and standards governing interconnection, and local siting and permitting processes.

Why do microgrids need different control arrangements?

This suggests a need for capabilities that model different control arrangements, such as through ADMS, Aggregators or DERMS, and the visibility of control so that stakeholders may assess the degree to which the capabilities of the microgrid can be used to meet stated performance objectives as dictated by the controller arrangement.

Are microgrids a good idea?

Microgrids will accelerate the transformation toward a more distributed and flexible architecture in a socially equitable and secure manner. This is because microgrids offer greatly heightened redundancy for the loads they serve, while also enabling operators enhanced visibility and control over distributed resources.