Smart grid advances: Are microgrids coming of age?

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The global microgrid market is growing up, according to cleantech research firm Pike Research. According to its new tracker report, pilot projects are fading and deployment of full-scale  commercial microgrids is accelerating quickly – so much so that three subsegments in the remote microgrid market (village power systems, weak grid island systems and industrial mine systems) are each expected to claim a more than $1 billion market by 2017.

Peter Asmus, Pike senior analyst, explains: "A wide range of electricity users are demonstrating strong demand for power generation and distribution systems that can be operated independently from the utility grid. A few of the market drivers include concerns about grid reliability, rising costs of fuel, broader availability of distributed generation technologies, and a drop in prices for some nontraditional energy sources such as solar photovoltaic systems.

"Microgrids are now emerging from the experimental stage and are being commercialized at greater scale and for an increasing variety of deployment applications," he added.

Pike's report, Microgrid Deployment Tracker 4Q11, identifies microgrids in five key segments: commercial/industrial, community/utility, institutions/campus, military and remote systems. As SGN has reported before, the U.S. military has gone seriously gung-ho over microgrids. Why? Because microgrids meet the military's needs extremely well for power reliability, security and energy efficiency and – equally important – enhanced service member safety and substantially lower fuel costs.

The new report provides details on 269 microgrid projects throughout the world, up considerably from 166 in the second quarter 2011 tracker report.

Asmus said the adoption of the IEEE P1547.4 islanding standards in July also adds support for the acceleration of full-scale microgrids.

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