GREEN TECH
2/28/2013 @ 7:20PM |83 views
D.C. Park Reveals the Gap Between Microgrid Promise and Reality
David Ferris, Contributor
The neighbors of Crispus Attucks Park in Washington D.C. have a dream. It is not, at first blush, an especially ambitious one. They want to wire the block-long park with electricity so they could run a lawnmower, maybe bring out a band on a hot summer night, or install a few power outlets so residents could recharge an iPad while they hang out.
A few years ago, residents tried to get Pepco, the utility in D.C., to install an electrical connection. (For historical reasons, the park is privately owned by its neighbors, not by the city.) But Pepco would have charged $25,000 just to plan such a thing — after putting the park on an 18-month waiting list — and then would have required a private installer to do the hookup for as much as $30,000, according to Molly Scott, a resident of the Bloomingdale neighborhood who serves as the park’s operations manager.
That was when the Crispus Attucks Development Corporation, the nonprofit that runs the park, got the idea that they could build a microgrid. A microgrid is a sort of mini-utility that relies on several local sources of power, like solar panels, to supply local electrical needs. It can exist independent of the power grid or interact with it so users can draw power from the macrogrid or the microgrid.
Microgrids are rising on the national radar these days in the wake of Superstorm Sandy and the frequent power outages brought on by our crazy weather. As more and more people install rooftop solar panels, they wonder: Could I rely on those panels to keep my lights on when the grid goes dark?
Hugh Youngblood, a resident of Washington D.C.'s Bloomingdale neighborhood, at Crispus Attucks Park, site of a future microgrid.
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