While the passing of the One Big Beautiful Bill has raised concerns around progressing towards energy industry goals, the sector is still facing many of the same challenges it did prior to the new policy. Growing power demands and grid instability remain major obstacles in the energy landscape, and now the industry is tasked with paving a path forward for future and existing projects.
The growth of AI in recent years is testing the grid, as are the escalating effects of climate change. Data center electricity consumption has grown 12% per year over the past five years, and 80% of major U.S. power outages from 2000 to 2023 were attributed to weather.
However, in light of these ongoing hindrances, momentum is not slowing; states are still prioritizing progress on projects to meet today’s energy requirements. In fact, more flexible and resilient energy technologies like microgrids are becoming more popular nationwide as a solution to combat energy demands and rising utility prices post-megabill.
Project developers have historically sought out energy solutions with predictable outcomes, efficient processes and strong ROI. These needs remain, even in an evolving political environment. Predictive modeling shows great potential to aid project leaders in investigating a number of different DER solutions and project outcomes, by looking multiple years into the future with sophisticated and thorough analyses. This helps the industry meet its goals and inform investment decisions while preserving critical resources. It allows for a comprehensive planning approach that solves for near- and far-term concerns.
Pushing for progress
While the federal government is deprioritizing energy initiatives today, state lawmakers are still moving plans forward to meet power needs in a way that is sustainable and productive.
Texan lawmakers recently convened to move on opportunities in distributed energy resources (DERs) to increase energy reliability and affordability. They see potential in DERs to enable consumers, businesses and communities to generate and store energy, taking strain off of utilities. Additionally, this summer, Oregon passed two bills to encourage community owned microgrid development, the first of their kind in the state. Hawaiian lawmakers also passed a bill this year to progress rooftop solar and battery storage installations.
While solar and energy storage development are still top-of-mind, there’s potential in more complex alternatives that involve multiple solutions to further increase efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Including just one or two additional DER elements in a solution can improve financial outcomes and performance enough to help a project succeed.
Microgrids meet demand and lower prices
Immense opportunity lies in microgrids, which offer flexibility for project developers to tailor a system to their individual energy requirements and implement a variety of DER solutions. They have the capacity to leverage solar panels, battery storage and various other energy solutions as key components to generate reliable and abundant electricity. This increases their resilience and adaptability due to the increased energy options available.
Adopting microgrids also addresses the issue of grid reliability, given their ability to operate independently from the grid, unimpacted in the event of a power disruption from increased demands. In the event of extreme weather or increased load demands from data centers, they can generate power for a specific purpose and keep communities, businesses, school campuses and even critical facilities like hospitals afloat.
Because microgrids are advanced in their capabilities to efficiently manage an energy supply, they can help owners reduce costs. In fact, they can even bring in added revenue by offering support to utilities; microgrids can sell power back to the grid in some cases.
While microgrids hold significant potential in improving grid efficiency and streamlining operations with the integration of multiple DERs, they can present complexity in planning and implementation. Project teams considering adoption need to upskill their capabilities, processes and toolsets to thrive in this evolving market.
Predictive modeling
Modern technology has advanced to aid energy project developers in their planning and development processes. Today, advanced and optimization based microgrid modeling platforms can help developers explore potential outcomes and look at likely results, even years away, to help with decision-making and resource-saving for businesses.
Modeling, when done right, can help with site selection for various project types and aid in weighing the pros and cons of implementing different technologies. Only sophisticated optimization based microgrid modeling tools can improve accuracy and speed for projects of all sizes, while increasing the likelihood of a strong ROI. This is especially impactful given the time intensive nature and overall cost of today’s energy projects.
Additionally, with the new emerging modeling systems, businesses can analyze and adapt their strategies over time to changing objectives or requirements.
As more states consider the advantages of adopting DERs and businesses and communities seek to reap the energy efficiency, reliability and affordability benefits, modeling has potential as an effective mechanism to make positive outcomes possible and address today’s power needs.
While a changing policy landscape can appear daunting when combined with expanding power needs, the task of continuing to transform the energy industry for the better still remains. As energy sector stakeholders continue their journey to address the needs of consumers, businesses and governments throughout the energy transition, it’s essential for leaders and project developers to be aware of the tools at their disposal.
Taking advantage of resources such as advanced optimization based modeling can streamline the process of adopting DERs and enhance outcomes in remediating energy capacity and grid reliability, despite the hurdles the energy industry faces today.
Dr. Michael Stadler is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Las Vegas based Xendee, a software company supporting the design and operation of complex distributed energy systems. Before that, Michael Stadler was a Staff Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and led their Grid Integration Group. He is a recipient of the White House’s Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), which is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. Over the course of his career, Michael has published more than 270 papers, journals, and reports to date and holds 17 copyrights and patents.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those held by pv magazine.
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