“SolarCity®…, America’s #1 solar power provider, today unveiled GridLogic, a microgrid service that combines distributed energy resources—solar, batteries and controllable load—to enable a cleaner, more resilient and more affordable way of providing power. SolarCity’s microgrid service ensures that any community anywhere in the world vulnerable to power outages and high energy costs—including remote or island communities, hospitals and military bases—can have dependable, clean power when the grid is down. GridLogic can operate either in conjunction with or independently of the utility grid.”
SolarCity will provide in-house design, financing, installation, and maintenance services for projects, billing GridLogic as a “Turnkey Microgrid-as-a-Service Solution.” The scalable systems, which can service single buildings or entire communities, feature lithium-ion batteries by Tesla Motors and will be capable of islanded mode when the utility grid is unavailable. SolarCity is targeting municipalities, remote communities, campuses, and military bases worldwide for its new service.
Peter Rive, Chief Technology Officer of SolarCity, told the New York Times, “The microgrid product is basically a culmination of all of the technology that SolarCity’s been developing over the past eight years,” adding that it’s “a template that can be scaled up to basically be the next-generation grid.”
Sources:
http://www.solarcity.com/newsroom/press/solarcity-launches-microgrid-service-available-worldwide
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/business/solarcity-a-vocal-critic-of-the-utility-industry-joins-it.html?_r=0