Reading Time: 4 minutesUtilities face a variety of challenges in today’s business and technical environment. While customers want lower prices, they also want greater reliability in general, and greater resilience at their specific location. A utility leader recently characterized the customer side of the equation, saying “It used to be that customers could occasionally cope with going 48 hours without power. Now, as soon as their cell phone battery goes dead, it’s a crisis for them.” Large, corporate solutions to these issues are expensive and don’t always solve the problem right to the customer’s door. On the other hand, microgrids and distributed power generation, can solve these problems and can do so comprehensively. Below are three problems that microgrids and distributed generation can solve. Problem #1: Low Power Generation from Utility Grid Historically, when a utility system became capacity “constrained,” the solution was to build bigger central station generators. These installations were difficult to build in the past and even more so now. This is partly due to the risk of recovering such large investments in a constantly changing regulatory environment, and partly
