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Blue Planet Energy’s senior application engineer and solar-plus-storage industry expert, Wes Kennedy, recently joined Mayfield Renewables’ Interconnection podcast to discuss all things microgrids.

The largest investor-owned utility in California (and the country), PG&E, began massive cuts to power across much of its service area in October 2019 as part of its Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) program. While the electric utility had warned of these cuts for many months, brief outages had only impacted a few tens of thousands of people, and many PG&E customers paid little attention to the warnings. Then, as the dry, hot weather characteristic of California fire season set in, PG&E announced its largest power cut ever, and more than 1.6 million people lost power.

As we've seen in the past few years, utilities can turn off your power at will for days at a time, whether to try to prevent wildfires or due to their inability to handle excessive weather events. The Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) events of 2019 not only left millions of Californians without electricity for weeks but also sparked questions of what’s to come if climate conditions continue to worsen and our reliance on an unreliable electric grid remains the same.

Seemed like just the other day that lithium-ion batteries started to attach to solar PV systems, mostly the nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) variety. Cut to 2022, and, according to the manufacturers we reached out to for this year’s Buyer’s Guide, lithium iron (ferrous) phosphate (LFP) has emerged as the trendiest battery chemistry on the market for residential and commercial and industrial (C&I) solar + storage systems. Another trend you’ll note is more/new battery options provided by larger brand names in effort to be a one source solutions provider. Peruse the list below for yourself, featuring options from 18 providers.

Led by Rodríguez Hernández, Por los Nuestros has installed solar microgrids to pump water from new wells in 25 communities located in the mountains. The microgrids consist of solar, batteries – most from Blue Planet Energy – and diesel backup generators.

Shungnak faces daunting energy challenges because of its remoteness. Before the microgrid was installed, the community relied on a diesel power plant, which is checked three times a day but is not staffed full-time.

The new project, which is also supported by the Northwest Arctic Borough, comes under the wing of the Hawaii-based firm Blue Planet Energy.

North of the Arctic Circle, the residents of the village of Shungnak, Alaska have become accustomed to burning diesel fuel for its electricity. In recent months, the village has paid $8.25 or more to keep its smelly, loud diesel power plants running.

A hybrid solar-plus-storage microgrid will replace some of the power generated by diesel in a remote community above the Arctic Circle in Alaska.