No replies to this topic

[eds]

Martha Cameron of Brooklyn,
. . . installed 18 photovoltaic panels on her roof,
. . . she is an energy producer for New York City’s utility company, Consolidated Edison,
. . . which buys electricity from her at wholesale rates, and
. . . deducts the payment from her monthly power bill.

Under this arrangement,
. . . Cameron can never profit from her contributions.
. . . Nor can she manage her own power supply.
. . . And when the neighborhood’s electricity goes out,
. . . . . . the utility company turns off her power, too,
. . . . . . lest the energy she generates migrates through the lines, and
. . . . . . injures the people working on them.
. . . If the grid were to fail for a prolonged period,
. . . . . . as it did during Superstorm Sandy in 2012,
. . . . . . the first priority would be to restore power to:
. . . . . . Hospitals,
. . . . . . Shelters, and
. . . .  . . Community Centers.
. . . Until that happens,
. . . . . . the sun could be high in the sky,
. . . . . . yet no electrons would flow from Cameron’s roof.

A Microgrid could solve this problem.
. . . But, one of the biggest questions surrounding the future of microgrids in the U.S.A. is,
. . . how best to get financial value out of them on a day-to-day basis when the larger grid is working.
“You’re going to make all these investments,
. . . that will make you more resilient in the unlikely event of a storm or a terrorist attack or other things. How do you take the assets that you’re putting into this microgrid, and
. . . figure out how to make them deliver value in the time when most of the grid is there?”

4-23-2016 Source:  Decentralized Energy Production & Consumption