Sustainability and resilience are part of an ever-evolving conversation within the energy and residential planning industries. Solar microgrids are now at the forefront of these conversations.
Solar energy has grown in recent years due to its sustainable energy model, its ability to be independent of a traditional power grid, and its ability to be applied to multiple industries and locations. Solar microgrids are similar to traditional solar fields with one key distinction, their ability to be disconnected from central network power grids. With traditional grids, all the utilized solar panels are connected and provide energy towards a singular grid, storing it in a central location for all houses, buildings, and any other forms of infrastructure to access. If a powerline falls or a natural disaster affects the grid, all of those connected to the grid will experience an outage.
What is a Microgrid?
In many areas of the country, especially rural areas, there is a far greater chance of a large grid failure due to a lack of protection or funding for the land. These failures, caused by natural disasters, power surges, or fallen transmission lines, can create a lack of confidence in the energy supplier and grid. These concerns have given rise to research and testing for the application of residential solar microgrids.
Microgrid solar panels are connected to what is known as a battery energy storage system (BESS), which are compact energy storage units with direct attachment to the microgrid. Generally, these grids can fit on one to two acres of land, with the potential to service up to 50 homes per acre of solar field. The concept of the microgrid supporting residential communities is very new but has undergone two pilot test programs by the U.S. Department of Energy in Menifee, California, powering a total of 219 homes.
One of the main challenges of solar microgrid implementation into a proposed residential community is space, especially in urban and suburban areas. As developers often look to maximize the number of housing units within their property, sacrificing valuable land to maximize the solar utility of their microgrid will be of primary importance."
Ryan Rizzetto
The Benefits of Microgrids
Traditional solar power grids operate through each panel, distributing generated energy into a singular, central pool. This energy storage process is where solar microgrids are most beneficial, through using the BESS system. This system allows all generated energy to be stored independently to that section of the solar panel microgrid. The key draw to this self-sufficient system is removing the possibility of load shedding.
Load shedding, also referred to as “rolling blackouts,” is a larger power grid’s ability to maintain overall grid stability during high demands by interrupting power access to different sections or regions of the grid. Often in this process, energy can be pulled away from residential communities. This process reduces resilience for rural residential communities, since stripping power creates difficulties for residential living conditions and local businesses’ capabilities.