The U.S. government has been doubling down on distributed energy resource technology

At a time when energy resilience and reinforced power systems are becoming more critical (and the solutions to those needs are changing), the U.S. government has shown a willingness to adapt, both with its own infrastructure and where it’s spending its money. 

I read earlier this week that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is, for the first time, using grant money to finance solar-powered microgrids in natural disaster-prone areas as a way to help residents build resilience against the terrors of climate change. A spreading of distributed energy resources like these will have multi-fold benefits – resilience, yes, but it also helps lighten the broader load of the power grid during storms, when power use seems to go up. Suddenly, load shedding or rolling outages become less dire if the system has more microgrids.

The U.S. army is also spending millions to test out a microgrid system for one of its most critical assets in the field – its hospitals. A resource-heavy hospital hooked up to a DER like a microgrid was something that could only be imagined a decade ago. Now, the U.S. Army, one of the more conservative organizations (when it comes to standard technology) is leaping into the microgrid world to increase the resilience of its field hospitals. The microgrids will help lower carbon emissions, and ensure some energy independence for the hospital in case the army’s larger power system is taken out at a base. 

These developments only sound sweet when we look at how the Department of Energy has been spending some money over the last six months. In September, DOE announced nearly $40 million in grants to nine projects focused on enhancing cybersecurity for distributed energy resource tools. In federal government terms, $40 million may be small, but it shows a recognition from the government that as the country expands its  DER, microgrid, and virtual power plant footprints in a digital world, it does create vulnerabilities. For the federal government to spend any meaningful amount of money on research tells me that these technologies are not only here to stay but will become standardized in the coming years. 

Then, in October, DOE gave National Grid $50 million for an initiative known as the Future Grid Project,  which looks to integrate DERs into the grid to help build-up vulnerable communities in New York and Massachusetts. We’re talking advanced metering infrastructure, DER management systems, and distribution management. It’s a comprehensive look at resiliency in the northeast, with modern tools, and the U.S. government is a critical partner. 

Of course, a lot of this money being handed out has come from major infrastructure bills passed by the Biden Administration. President Joe Biden is in the midst of a competitive re-election campaign. The infrastructure money he helped secure will not go away if he loses, but I will be keen to find out whether similar bills and legislation focusing on modernizing the country’s infrastructure will continue to flow under a different administration.