You know that experience, when you buy a new car, and suddenly you see the model everywhere? Since Superstorm Sandy I’ve had the equivalent experience with the term ‘microgrid.’

Policymakers and thought leaders in the US Northeast started talking microgrid in earnest shortly (more…)

Despite tumultuous times for the industry, 2012 marked a banner year for clean technology in San Diego. Numerous organizations within the region’s cleantech cluster – from startups to multinational brands – made significant strides in continuing San Diego’s leadership in the global advanced energy economy. CleanTECH San Diego, a regional non-profit member (more…)

All last week there were numerous frantic New Yorkers looking desperately for places to plug-in. Without electricity this ultra connected island was stranded by the storm both physically and electronically. People stood in groups throughout the darkened city listening to battery-powered boom boxes for news. In polling places on Long Island generators still stood (more…)

Here’s a video that shows where I spent my afternoon: on a tour of the (currently) 2 megawatt solar photovoltaics facility at Fort Hunter Liggett in Central California, now the largest solar array on a military base in the U.S. – and soon to be a microgrid. As I took a tour with some colleagues, work was underway for Phase Two, which will add two more MW, and enough battery (more…)

Recently I had the chance to tour the Island of Alcatraz, once the site of one of America’s most famous prisons. The prison was closed in 1963 due to the high cost of maintenance in such a remote location, but it remains a top tourist destination.

My justification for this junket was an invitation from (more…)

According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), what Pike Research defines as a “remote microgrid” is not a microgrid. The DOE defines a microgrid as a distribution system connected to a larger utility grid, with its defining characteristic being the ability to disconnect (seamlessly) and then operate in islanding mode. (more…)

In the past, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has played a remarkably consistent role in commercializing new technologies that provide tremendous social benefits within the larger civilian realm. The Internet, created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1969, is perhaps the best-known DOD (more…)

Hurricane Irene, which knocked out power for approximately six million customers in 13 states and the District of Columbia last week, raises a question: What smart grid technology could have enabled homes, businesses, and mission critical institutions to have played a more vital role in providing reliability, security, and (more…)

Recent advances in the complexity of microgrids currently being installed are stimulating a rush to increase the versatility and function of a technology platform originally conceived around the notion of hyper-reliability. This is why the Department of Defense (DOD) is so enamored by the prospects of (more…)

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) has long been seen as a clean technology pioneer. After all, this is a utility that shuttered a nuclear reactor after a public vote in 1989, and has since blazed trails on wind, solar, and energy efficient technologies. (more…)