New control technologies lower microgrid costs, ease renewables integration

The Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County, California, houses 4,000 inmates and has an electric load of about 3 MW, partly served via a smart microgrid, installed as a field demonstration of an autonomous and decentralized control concept. As more clean and distributed resources come onto today's utility grids, critical loads are increasingly turning to microgrids to ensure power stability. New control technologies can help keep costs down, while allowing for increasing penetration of renewables. The Santa Rita system includes solar, wind, battery storage and a fuel cell. And once assembled, "it just worked," said Robert Lasseter, an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin and a principle investigator of the CERTS MIcrogrid Concept.