In October of
last year, San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) introduced the Beach Cities
Microgrid project. With additional participation by some big names in the energy
industry—Horizon
Energy Group (HEG), Advance Control Systems (ACS), Motorola, IBM, Lockheed
Martin (LM)—as
well as help from Pacific Northwest National Lab and the University of San
Diego, the pilot project was designed to “test,
in San Diego, CA, how information-based technologies and DER [distributed energy
resource] may increase asset utilization and reliability.” In other words, the
Beach Cities Microgrid project is an attempt to see how the smart grid would
work in the real world.
The
goal of the microgrid program is to “design and demonstrate a smart electrical
grid that incorporates sophisticated sensors, communications, and controls in
the following ways:
* Intelligently
incorporate solar power generators on homes and businesses into the electrical
delivery system
* Enable
coordinated Demand Response programs whereby heavy electrical use during peak
demand periods can be moderated to prevent electrical supply
emergencies
* Integrate
and control multiple distributed generation and electrical energy storage
devices to operate the grid in a more cost-effective and reliable manner,
benefiting customers and electrical rates
The
hope is that the
Beach Cities Microgrid project can prove the effectiveness of integrating
multiple DERs with advanced controls and communications.
Click here to
review the 2008 report on the Beach Cities Microgrid project.