In part 3 of “Living on the Edge” John Krzesicki examines microgrids with his guest Thomas Bourgeois, Deputy Director of the Pace Energy and Climate Center.
Transcript
Welcome to the PSR PowerTALK podcast produced by Power Systems Research.
00:06 John Krzesicki
Hello, my name is John Krzesicki. Today it’s my pleasure to host the Power Systems “Living on the Edge” series. The show we have conversation with industry experts on their insight into the future of intelligent technology.
With over 30 years of experience supporting the manufacturing industry, I’ve seen an unbelievable change in technology. One of today’s challenges is designing equipment used to manage power for the upcoming wave of data.
Today’s conversation will be centered around microgrids.
Today it’s my pleasure to introduce our guest speaker, Tom Bourgeois. Tom is the Deputy Director for Pace Energy and Climate Center. Tom has published several papers around energy infrastructure and is involved with supporting several energy organizations.
Welcome Tom, I’m glad you could join us today. If you can give us a little insight on who Pace Energy is and, kind of, a little bit of a background on, for yourself, that would be great.
00:58 John Bourgeois
Well John, first of all, thank you very much for this opportunity. I’m pleased to have a chance to talk about the work that we do and some of the exciting areas that I think that society is moving in and that we are, are taking part in.
I’m the Deputy Director of the Pace Energy and Climate Center. We’re at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University. Our program was named number one environmental law school in the country by U.S. News and World Report this year and in 2019, two of the last three years.
We were formed more than 30 years ago by former Congressman Dick Ottinger, who chaired the House Energy Committee during the Carter Presidency and, and President Reagan. We’re very much involved in regulatory issues, in effective design of energy efficiency, clean energy systems, distributed energy resources.
I also serve as the Director for the US Department of Energy’s New York-New Jersey Combined Heat and Power — CHP, Combined Heat and Power Center.
I will be speaking today solely in my role as the Deputy Director of Pace; but for many years we’ve also been involved in the US Department of Energy’s Combined Heat and Power, CHP, work and today, run the New York and New Jersey Center.
02:18 John Krzesicki
Well, thank you Tom. Pretty impressive background and resume.
So, if you could start off the some of the questions I have, can you just help me with defining what is a microgrid?
02:29 John Bourgeois
A microgrid is a self-contained energy system. Typically, though not always, but typically it works interconnected with the utility grid, or, let’s call it the macro grid. A microgrid provides electric power and heating and cooling hot water to a particular geographic area, such as a college campus, perhaps a large multi-family complex, an industrial park, a neighborhood, or a military installation. Microgrids are a way to provide an isolated, independently operating, energy system for a block, uh, a neighborhood, a large development.
03:14 John Krzesicki
So, jumping into some of the additional questions. What would be some of the benefits of a microgrid or microgrid community, if, if I can give that, use that term.
03:24 John Bourgeois
Sure, well, let me explore a little bit more about what a microgrid is and, and that way I think it would help to, to amplify this.
Microgrids incorporate a variety of, of different, what we call, distributed energy technologies. That is, rather than a central power plant supplying power and independent boilers or furnaces providing heating and hot water, the microgrid typically provides power within this particular geographic footprint and, oftentimes, uses this combined heat and power application, where power is generated in the excess, or waste heat from that power is then utilized, in a very efficient manner, to provide heating, hot water, and cooling or air conditioning for that site.
So, the microgrid configuration, oftentimes, will include a variety of, of clean distributed energy forms. It can be a very smart way of using our country’s natural gas resources, reciprocating engines or gas combustion turbines providing electric power, and, along with that, the efficient production of heat. But it also, and increasingly does, incorporate battery storage or thermal energy storage, and it also incorporates renewable energy, solar energy in particular, and even EV charging stations. So, this microgrid can provide the full complement of distributed energy resources, including the technologies that would be used, like EVs to electrify and reduce the environmental footprint of our transportation system, as well as renewable energy, designed to decarbonize our power system.
05:23 John Krzesicki
Very good, that’s great information. That gives me a little better handle on, you know, microgrids. A little bit about the, you know, the advantages, the benefits for microgrids.
So, tell me a little bit about the challenges.
05:35 John Bourgeois
There are several challenges for microgrids.
And let me first state that that microgrids are in existence. Once again, this is not a case of, uh, something that doesn’t exist. It’s a case of “it can be done, because it has been done”. We have done this and we’re doing it more and more.
So, the microgrid concept has been used in hospitals, and military is using it much more so. There’s a lot of applications for military bases that wish to be self-sufficient during any sort of critical infrastructure or power emergency. The same with a hospital. Hospitals have an absolute need for power. Many businesses; IT data processing has an absolute need for power. And then there are other applications where it would be very desirable; like multi-family complexes, public housing, to, to have a, a source of power to keep vulnerable populations in place during emergency situations.
Now getting back to the challenges. Microgrids have developed first in areas where you have one large property owner. So, let’s say, a military complex that includes all sorts of different operations on a base that includes housing, that includes offices, that includes, maybe, some sort of production or repair facilities. Or, for another example, let’s consider a university. There’s, there’s many instances on universities. The university would include dorms, that would include laboratories, it would include research, it would include, you know, data centers and classrooms. Hospitals are another great application. The hospital is often a very large complex spanning, you know, a city block or more. In these instances, and the reason why I’m building out, it, it’s likely to happen here first is: you have a single property, with a single owner. There may be multiple buildings, there may be multiple types of operation; but, it’s all under the control of a single owner.
The challenges arise at the point where you are trying to generate and sell power to multiple entities. So, for example, let’s say you have a, a microgrid. Let’s say it’s at a hospital but it wants to sell power across the street to the shopping center; or wants to sell power up the hill to a gas station or a pharmacy. In that case, you’re crossing roads, you are involving several unaffiliated business owners, and this brings in challenges from a variety of perspectives.
Challenge number one is it often runs contrary to utility franchise rights. Utilities often have an exclusive franchise to serve the customers in an area. So once you get beyond the, you know, the confines of the hospital and all of its facilities, or the university campus and all of its facilities and you start, you know, selling power or, or providing hot water, cooling, or, or heat up and down the street, you may run into franchise. utility franchise issues.
There’s also a host of other issues; code, siting, permitting. You know running the electrical conduit, running the pipes, providing hot water, or providing chilled water, for, whether it be heating hot water or cooling. And, and, other challenges, such as the, the challenges involved in getting multiple different customers.
Again, let’s go back to that example I said. Suppose you had a hospital, a big hospital that was an anchor in the downtown area, and you had nearby customers who also wanted that power or that resiliency. Let’s say they included a gas station. Let’s say they included a, a shopping center. Let’s say a pharmacy. You then have several different businesses and you have to put together a legal and financial arrangement that shares responsibility across those various users. So, I think you can see that it becomes a bit more complex as it grows out.
10:04 John Krzesicki
Those are definitely interesting challenges and I really haven’t thought of it that way. I think that, that brings a lot of value to just having this conversation and to, you know, to the people who are listening.
10:15 John Bourgeois
Now, despite the challenges, these, these arrangements are definitely growing an interest around the country. And, in our part, let me speak to my area then, which I know best the Northeast, New York, New Jersey, New England. We had a, uh, a huge increase in interest in microgrids that occurred after a couple of severe storms. There was a, uh, late fall storm that hit Connecticut and knocked power out. This was in 2011 and it knocked power out for a large part of the state for, in some cases, for several weeks. A late fall snowstorm, you know, heavy wet snows bringing down tree branches, knocking down power lines.
That led the Connecticut Legislature to create what I believe was the country’s first microgrid pilot program. That was immediately followed in the Northeast the next year, in 2012, by Superstorm Sandy. Superstorm Sandy, of course, leveled large parts of New York, New Jersey and went up into New England and even as far as Maine. Particularly hard hit was, was New York; where large parts of the city were out of power for some time.
A major hospital, Langone Hospital, NYU Langone, made national news when they lost power and, you know, on national news you saw people being carried 17 floors down, you know, by hand in their beds; critical care patients. And so, hospitals and other critical facilities said we can’t afford to let something like this happen again. We want a combined heat and power. We want a resilient microgrid. You know, we want to ensure 24/7 power.
In New Jersey, for example, New Jersey, following Hurricane Sandy, used 200,000,000 of their HUD relief money. Housing and Urban development provided sandy relief money. And the state of New Jersey created a very innovative, what they called an energy resiliency bank, ERB. And that bank, subsequently, was used to fund several hospital microgrid projects, as well as projects at wastewater treatment plants were, obviously, very important sources of resilient power.
That’s kind of the context of, you know, why microgrids (are) initially gained prominence in, in the public dialogue.
The same has happened in Texas. Severe storms that hit Texas a couple years ago There was a large Texas hospital center which was able to run isolated from the grid.
When Sandy hit Long Island, there was a center that included a hospital and a nursing home on Long Island that ran almost two weeks where the surrounding area had no power.
So, this has precipitated in the interest among citizens, among policymakers and among cities, city officials, city and state officials, to look into the development ,for specific areas, of, of microgrids and the resiliency benefits that they that they can provide to a community.
13:33 John Krzesicki
OK great, great. Again great, great information.
So, what does the future look like for microgrids? Especially, as you had mentioned earlier in the conversation, about EVs and technology requiring, you know, more power, more energy, more data, more information. What do you see the future look like for the microgrid communities as we move forward here?
13:57 John Bourgeois
I think that there’s a pretty bright future for, for microgrids. We will continuously see an interest in microgrids driven by storms. As we see storms, as we see the need for more resilient power. There will be a continued need.
But there are other drivers as well. The microgrid is a really smart way of using a variety of different technologies.
First of all, they, oftentimes, utilize combined heat and power or cogeneration, kind of at the center of the project, along with the renewables and the storage. Combined heat and power, the United States is blessed with great natural gas resources, and combined heat and power is the smartest way to use our natural gas resource.
Gas, natural gas, in power generation may be anywhere from 35 to 40% efficient. 40s, certainly, at the high end. You generate power far away from the site and then you have all the losses in transmission and distribution. When you’re generating power at your site, you have no losses in the T&D system because it’s right there. Furthermore, though, because the gas system is so much more resilient than the electric system, the electric system is subject to, you know, wires coming down and winds and snow and ice. The gas system is far more resilient. That’s just an empirical fact. Gas outages are far less, far, far less likely to occur.
But beyond that, it also incorporates the microgrid; incorporates communications, IT, broadband, advanced controls, and smart optimization algorithms. So it allows these various systems, that are often desired and in utilization or increasing utilization by communities and smart communities, it packages these together in an ecosystem that allows for a reduced carbon pollution, it allows for lower energy costs, it allows for reduced macro utility distribution costs, and it just provides a really good ecosystem for building out your renewables.
You know, one way to do renewables is on a rooftop, you know, one rooftop at a time. That may not be the most efficient way to do it. Not everybody has a good south face. Many buildings are tree shaded. The buildings I think of in New York City, again, the northeast, going back to my particular area, you know, you’ve got very tall buildings where, with very high power density and PV on those buildings, is just absolutely insufficient.
But the microgrid may be a really smart way of integrating renewable resources along with extremely efficient, high efficiency, environmentally superior utilization of natural gas and including, including things like EV charging to reduce our transportation environmental footprint. So, I, I see the, the future as being pretty bright.
I see there definitely needs to be changes in the regulatory environment. And let me go back to what we do. This, this is where our, our center fits in. We’ve always worked on the edge of the regulatory and the market frameworks that help accelerate clean energy technologies, energy efficiency and renewable energy.
Energy systems are, you know, this is not a free market economy. You know, it’s, it’s not like, you know, setting up a restaurant; anybody can do it anywhere they want with the right resources. It’s not even like creating a new software product; you create a software product, you sell it in the market, it works or it doesn’t work.
When you’re providing power and cooling and heating, you know, there, it’s a regulated utility. You’re regulated by, you know, you have local regulation, you have a state, public utility commission regulating you. That you have the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC. So, John, this is an area that needs a lot of attention by cities, by businesses, by policymakers, to create the right regulatory framework, as well as the right market rules.
So, for example, once again we tend to stovepipe, or to kind of create in isolation, various incentives. So, you know, you have many, many states, if you put solar on your rooftop, you get an incentive. You know, if you put, if you have wind, you get an incentive. These are kind of 1 by 1 stovepiped and, and not generalized.
The microgrid, I think, calls for, and once again, this is where our center and centers like us and advocates for this fit in, the microgrid can provide kind of an overarching package, or like I said, an ecosystem, where if you’re paying, rather than paying individual technologies, you can pay a system for its reductions in, in carbon emissions. Pay a system for its reduction in criteria pollutants.
So, we see a particularly attractive future because we see a move towards renewables, we see a definite move towards EVs. The President and the Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, have seen fit to, in the infrastructure bill, dedicate a lot of money to upgrade of the grid, the electric grid. The microgrid certainly supports that by working alongside the so-called existing utility macro grid. It, it both supports it by reducing stresses on that macro grid and by providing increased reliability.
So, there is money coming to do this. Broadband helps facilitate this. Again, back to what I was saying before, the microgrid really relies on advanced controls, communications, facilitated by broadband, facilitated by smart IT, and optimization algorithms.
What it lacks today to really flourish is the right kind of a regulatory environment and the right kind of a market framework which identifies positive benefits. The benefit of resiliency, the benefit of providing grid support for the utility, the benefit of providing reliability for critical infrastructure, so that the hospital can keep running, so that, you know, the, the, the senior multi-family complex or the nursing home is kept running and you don’t have to move patients during a storm.
So, recognition of those benefits, new incentive systems that measure and quantify and pay for those benefits in a smarter way than we do today, I think, is what is going to help. And I’ve, I’ve neglected, although I shouldn’t, because there’s a huge and growing market for electric vehicles, and charging stations, and all the required assets that make the EV revolution occur, that too can be incorporated, in part, in this whole ecosystem.
21:32 John Krzesicki
Well, I certainly learned a lot today. I mean, this is, this is definitely a, you know, a great education on the microgrid; what the benefits are, what the challenges are, and, and where it’s going. I agree with 100%. I mean, our clients are having these conversations every day about, you know, what does the future look like? What does the forecast look like for this environment as we move into the smart city or intelligent city environment.
So, today this concludes our podcast.
Tom, thank you again for your time. I really appreciate, again, you’ve taken the time and effort and insight to provide, provide us in the microgrid technology.
22:08 John Bourgeois
Thank you very much, John, much appreciated.
22:10 John Krzesicki
All right, have a great day.
22:12 John Krzesicki
Bye now.
22:13
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