Smart Grid in Action: The Hoboken Microgrid

Smart Grids are reclaiming the crumbling electric grid of the United States. The current grid is still basically the one that Thomas Edison designed long before his death in 1931. His design allowed heavy, coal fire plants to provide electricity for both residential and industrial needs. Updating, rather than re-doing the grid since that time has looked more like a patch work job, than that of a technologically modernizing country.

One element of new Smart Grids popping up is the Microgrid. Just as it sounds, the Microgrid distributes electricity on a micro scale together with or separate from the larger grid around it. Critical infrastructures from one building or as much as an entire town or city neighborhood can fall under the power protection of these isolated grids. They come in handy during times of man made or natural disaster. While diesel or natural gas back-up generators were the 'go-to' back up systems of the past, renewable resources like the solar and wind with utility size battery storage increasingly attract the attention of public and private investors worldwide.

Microgrids and How the Work 

(Video courtesy of CockrellSchool)

The Hoboken, New Jersey Microgrid project is a perfect example of how locally resourced backups can protect electricity access even when the surrounding grid has gone into power outage. One characteristic of all Microgrids, as you will see in the video, becomes the close collaboration between communities, local, state and federal authorities, along with civil society groups and private sector companies.

How Microgrids Improve Resiliency in Power Outages | Clean Energy Supply 

(Video courtesy of Pew)