Founder’s Message – September 2021

Dear Readers,

In this month’s newsletter, we demonstrate the progress of the microgrid industry with features on projects completed by two of the largest companies in the power industry.

Siemens Energy Microgrid Product Manager Dino Ablakovic describes the control challenges of a grid-connected microgrid, his views on the prospects for green hydrogen and the interconnection of multiple microgrids.

BayWa r.e. Solar Projects Manager, Thorsten Althaus, discusses a hybrid power project at a large gold mine in Mali, West Africa. He explains how HOMER® software’s ability to create custom control algorithms through its Matlab link informed Wärtsilä’s programming of the project’s energy management system.

Our industry has always looked at mining as an attractive application for microgrids because of the number of remote mines with large electric loads and diesel fuel requirements.  The mining industry also has stringent reliability requirements, so I am gratified to see the rapid uptake of renewables and storage beginning to occur.  

We are now less than four weeks away from our annual conference, UL’s HOMER Microgrid and Hybrid Power International. In addition to being complimentary and entirely virtual so you can participate without costs, the focus has expanded to include a wider variety of hybrid projects, including utility-scale front-of-the-meter projects.

We are also offering HOMER Training sessions in addition to the regular conference panels. Please be sure to register now. I hope to see you there!