

The utility meters the use of each end user to determine charges. Substations connect high voltage transmission lines to lower voltage lines appropriate for most end uses.Īfter power flows through or is transformed at the substation, distribution lines carry it to each end user. High voltage electricity is transmitted, often over long distances, from the power plant to a substation near a demand center. power system is generated in large, centralized power plants. The vast majority of the energy in the U.S. To understand microgrids, it can be helpful to consider a few defining characteristics of our traditional energy system. Speakers from Hitachi Energy Solutions and the Microgrid Institute provided insight into how organizations can capture the value of microgrid deployment. A GreenBiz webinar earlier this month highlighted microgrids’ primary benefits: Microgrids help to address all of these challenges, and can advance all of the major missions charged to sustainability directors in a single project. Third, our "centralized distribution system presents an array of vulnerabilities from a cyber and physical security standpoint," according to the former commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Jon Wellinghof. Of these customers, 1.4 million were still without power six days after the storm. Hurricane Sandy affected 8.7 million power customers, some of whom were hundreds of miles away from the coast. A 2014 Climate Central report found a tenfold increase in major power outages between the mid-1980s and 2012.

Second, severe weather events are becoming more frequent and more damaging. Indeed, North American utility executives identify aging infrastructure as the single most pressing challenge for their industry. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives our energy infrastructure a D-plus. Grid components have been grafted onto the system, often haphazardly, over the course of 120 years.
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As the North American power grid grows increasingly secure, microgrids are drawing attention as a potentially elegant solution to a whole series of challenges.įirst, the grid is aging.
