(68c) Microgrids for the Macrogrid: Advancing Community Microgrids for Grid Modernization

Global trends - the digital age, prospect of cyberwarfare, climate change, consumer preferences – are irreversibly changing the supply and demand for electricity as well as the risks that threaten access to electricity. The existing grid was designed to serve a different kind of society and is ill-suited for meeting new challenges. A modern electricity system will not only have more actors, but will need to be fundamentally different in how it dispatches resources, communicates information, responds to grid disturbances, and plans for the future. A modern grid is decentralized, flexible, adaptable, and smart (i.e. automated, digitized, self-healing). By these characteristics, electricity access becomes reliable, efficient, and resilient. Microgrids add both resilience and flexibility to the system and policy initiatives can encourage them through technology-agnostic market rules and economic forces.