The American microgrids of the 2030s – intelligent, resilient and sustainable

The great energy transition is about more than averting disaster; it’s a bridge to a better world. Today we envision a brighter energy future for the US – a future with a fully electrified economy, supplied with affordable, reliable power. One crucial component will be independent, local microgrids, spanning entire substation grid areas and powered by clean energy sources like solar, wind, and hydrogen. The bridge from now to 2030 is held up by four pillars:

AI: AI will contain outages by islanding, increasing responsiveness and reducing human error. It will also be used to leverage unstructured data draw inferences where data is lacking.

Talent: Training and upskilling will reshape energy and utilities workforces, offering new opportunities and the chance to be part of a new, positive energy story.

Cybersecurity: With its dependency on legacy technologies, the U.S. Energy Grid is extremely vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Distributed architecture in the form of microgrids offers communities much more resiliency as there’s not one single point of attack.

Local ecosystems: Managing multiple energy sources in a microgrid, with different generation and availability characteristics, requires management of new supply chains and partners. Residents and businesses will be able to purchase energy directly from within their own community microgrid (P2P). Profits can then be invested back into the community.