Marin County Microgrid Project Kicks Off

Distributed intelligent agent software provider Infotility, Inc. kicked off the field test phase of a Smart Grid demonstration project to optimize large-scale renewable energy in a community setting. The project will involve five municipal buildings on the Marin County Civic Center Campus.

The project is jointly funded by DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability's (EDER) Smart Grid Research and Development Program, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PPNL) and the Marin County Office of Sustainability -- but the grants are not related to the Smart Grid stimulus awards announced earlier this week.

It is a three-year demonstration of Infotility's Renewables Integration software, Smart Community Energy Manager software and Smart Facility Energy Manager software. During the field test, the software applications will coordinate and optimize large-scale renewables such as wind and solar on the electric grid.

Eric Lightner, director of DOE's Smart Grid Task Force, Senator Barbara Boxer, D-California and Marin County officials were expected to participate in the kick off in San Rafael. Lightner said of the project, "Funding for this demonstration is an important affirmation by DOE that renewable energy can and will become an easy-to-manage grid asset."

The project has four phases, and each stage will use progressively expanding software capabilities and Smart Grid technologies—based on the availability of those technologies and response from the Marin community. Ultimately, the goal is to enable utilities and communities to manage their distributed renewable energy supplies such as wind and solar as conventional assets for the electric grid, and to ensure that those resources are a foundation and reliable element of their energy portfolios.

Initially, the project will demonstrate integration of the renewable energy supply with automated demand response platforms. In this phase, Infotility intends to establish a strong precedent for regional-scale implementation of an integrated, interoperable and secure Smart Grid. Also, it will serve in its own right as a test bed for development of both software and renewable technologies that future community-based Smart Grid projects will use.

Marin County's Marin Energy Authority (MEA) has submitted a $30 million ARRA funding request to DOE to support a larger regional demonstration incorporating Infotility's software in 1,000 commercial buildings and 5,000 homes in three Marin communities. Infotility's industry partners and the community are expected to pony up an additional $60 million in matching funds.

Infotility CEO David Cohen said, "This project begins to assess the impact of high levels of solar penetration and voltage regulation requirements on the grid. We are gratified that our software platforms are now being field tested in the preliminary demonstration project, and we look forward to continuing our pioneering role when SC2 evolves to a large-scale regional demonstration effort." SC2 is the acronym for Smart Communities Empowering Smart Customers, the formal title of the larger proposed project.

Infotility's GridAgents software has specific applications for Smart Grid-based energy networks used for integration of renewables and distributed energy resources, microgrid management, intelligent load control, and smart charging applications coordination.

   Infotility news release

   Microgrid threat or opportunity commentary on SGN