On the evening of July 3, 2018, a wildfire broke out a half mile from the Rocky Mountain Institute office in Basalt, Colorado, in the heart of the Roaring Fork Valley. This fire—dubbed the Lake Christine Fire—spread to engulf more than 12,500 acres and came within minutes of shutting down power to the upper Roaring Fork Valley.
The design for a community microgrid project that is forming in Warner, New Hampshire, seems rather prosaic at first glance. It is simple, with a few buildings, some solar panels, batteries, inverters, and all the regular gear. It seems an appropriately small start for a town with only 444 people in its center and a total population well below 3,000.
Originally published on ilsr.org. Most microgrids today are single buildings that rely on diesel generators to run when the grid is out. They’re simple backup, redundant power. But some more advanced microgrids, such as the Clean Coalition’s planned community microgrids, are looking into the future, when multiple sources of generation can … [continued]
