Leading microgrid businesses and hosts recently announced the launch of a new consortium that will support microgrid deployment and the enhanced resilience, cost-effectiveness and energy efficiency they offer. Founding members of the Microgrid Resources Coalition (MRC) include Princeton University, NRG Energy, ICETEC Energy, Concord Engineering and the International District Energy Association.
The MRC’s mission is to support accelerated microgrid deployment by improving the regulatory and market environment for existing and new microgrids. The MRC will advocate for formal regulatory reforms that recognize and appropriately value these services, while assuring non-discriminatory access to the grid for a wide variety of microgrid configurations and business models.
“Today’s wholesale market rules and transmission planning were not designed with the dynamic capabilities of microgrids and their tremendous cost synergies in mind,” said Thomas A. Nyquist, Chair of the MRC and Executive Director of Engineering and Campus Energy for Princeton University. “As an owner and operator of one of the world’s most advanced microgrids, Princeton has seen first-hand the benefits these systems provide for our community and the grid. The MRC’s work to bring power market rules and practices up to date so they can integrate and incentivize microgrids with these features is critical to create more value, for microgrid hosts, their communities, and the grid as a whole.”
“As customers increasingly seek energy resilience, savings and enhanced environmental performance, we see microgrid deployment really starting to take off,” said Steven Corneli, Senior Vice President for Sustainability, Policy and Strategy at NRG Energy. “Microgrids of various forms will become key distributed components of a smarter, cleaner and much more energy-efficient power system. Innovations in core microgrid technologies like solar, cogeneration, and control systems are happening so fast that microgrids are outpacing existing regulatory frameworks and business models. The MRC will work to ensure our market and other regulatory rules are updated to support microgrids and the new business models that are bringing their benefits to customers and communities.”
“Campuses and buildings served by microgrids are becoming incredibly responsive, able to response dynamically to grid operators in seconds,” said Michael Webster, Founder and Chief Technical Officer for ICETEC Energy. “The MRC will seek to ensure microgrid hosts are fairly compensated by the market for their unique capabilities.” Corneli and Webster are the Vice-Chairs of the MRC.
The MRC is intended to bring together a broad spectrum of microgrid leaders to identify and seek regulatory reforms needed to ensure that customers, communities and the power grid receive the economic, efficiency, resiliency and environmental benefits of microgrids. For more information, visit: www.microgridresources.com.
Source: Microgrid Resources Coalition
