Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Microgrid Proving Ground for DOD Facility Energy Security

This article in earth2tech describes the award of a microgrid demonstration project to GE citing the following faulty rationale:
Military bases are largely in remote locations and have to be prepared for events that could potentially separate them from the greater power grid.
No offense, but it's not grid separation anxiety that's keeping Commanders awake at night, it's the lack of robustness of the grid itself. As the DSB 2008 energy report (and just about everyone else) warned, bases have made themselves far too dependent on the often wobbly grid.

Hopefully this project at the Marine Corp's huge Twentynine Palms installation and others like it herald change by giving bases the capability to become electricity islands when necessary. Here's a write-up on GE's own blog with a little more detail.

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