Outfox Outages
Successful business operations hinge on reliable power delivered where and when it’s needed. For this reason, organizations are developing climate-adaptive, sustainable business models that include battery energy storage systems (BESS), clean energy sources such as solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, and other generation sources—all controlled by a microgrid.
While valuable, renewable power from solar, wind, and waves is variable, which affects power quality. Microgrids quickly ramp up or down to balance supply and demand. Microgrids ensure steady distribution of stored energy day and night to effectively reduce power interruptions and intermittency from renewables. They also serve as control centers to seamlessly transition load to different types of power sources, such as BESS, solar PV, combined heat and power, fuel cells or onsite generators. By diversifying energy sources, your business can use energy based on availability and rates, creating a reliable, responsive energy system.
As climate change supercharges hurricanes, flooding and drought, U.S. businesses realize the potentially high cost of their vulnerability. In 2022, the U.S. experienced 18 weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each, including physical damage to commercial buildings and its content as well as the cost of business disruption.
Organizations are tapping climate analytics to identify the likelihood of climate hazards and the resulting impacts on their operations. With this knowledge, organizations prioritize funding towards adapting their buildings, systems, and functions to address the predicted risk. Microgrids are a top mitigation measure because they protect against outages, nixing costly operational downtime and protecting critical community functions such as data centers, hospitals, and emergency services. By providing localized power and control, microgrids also strengthen the central grid by reducing peak demand, which benefits the entire community.
Businesses with microgrids and BESS seamlessly transition off the central grid to their own systems as needed, which is especially beneficial if the utility charges time-of-use rates. Onsite generation, storage, and a microgrid provide reliable energy often at lower rates than organizations can purchase from the electric utility, which reduces operational costs.
Additionally, organizations can potentially sell stored surplus power back to utilities, creating a revenue stream that offsets costs of building and operating the microgrid. For example, utilities anticipate high loads during the summer when air conditioning use is high. Utilities then will issue a demand response signal to incentivize customers to decrease their loads during this time; utility compensation can be significant at the commercial scale. Organizations with microgrids can better predict expenses, balance volatile energy price spikes, and obtain energy at the lowest cost possible.
Driven by climate change and sustainability goals, many organizations are delivering their goods and services from green buildings, facilities, and campuses. Green buildings focus on all systems to design an ideal clean structure, but the energy system affects nearly every facility function, including transportation as electric fleets and vehicles continue their rise.
For this reason, many development and retrofit projects include renewables to power buildings with clean energy and reduce carbon emissions—even blended energy assets can have a significant impact on lowering emissions. Businesses who use renewable sources amplify their sustainable practices and meet their “green energy” goals. Microgrids help regulate renewables, by stabilizing their integration into localized energy management. With better integration, renewables help businesses decrease carbon footprints and become more sustainable and resilient.
But Can You Future-Proof It?
Clever question. Before and after you build it, it’s wise to protect your energy infrastructure investment. Using digital twin technology, you can create a virtual replica of your company’s energy systems. This technology enables data-driven, real-time simulations of a facility’s systems and processes. Two major ways in which using digital twins helps ensure operational success of microgrids are:
Cost-effective planning & design. Digital twin technology eliminates geographical barriers in the initial site due diligence and design phases. The entire team can virtually walk the project to proactively identify and mitigate potential issues. It’s much more expensive to make changes after construction has started; it’s best to “design twice, build once” by gaining operational insights before breaking ground.
Optimized facility operations & maintenance. Data-driven operational intelligence boosts efficiency by streamlining day-to-day operations and maintenance practices. Digital twins allow operators to use real-time data from any device with internet access and visualize system behavior through simulation of the facility and its microgrid. These highly specialized models also can also be used to simulate energy demand response impacts, evaluate backup generator systems, identify pressure-points, and monitor operational costs.
The right energy system for your business depends on many factors that are often unique to your business. Whether you’re building a new facility or modernizing an existing one, it’s essential to analyze current power needs and to understand available technologies. You might also want to consider future loads, such as electric fleet vehicles.
Black & Veatch provides technical insight and can evaluate the costs and business implications of a microgrid and related solutions. This journey starts with a customized roadmap to guide your microgrid from strategic decision-making to commissioning. With a trusted partner, your organization can balance volatile energy environments and integrate a range of technologies to cost-effectively achieve resilience, sustainability, and growth.
National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration. 2023. Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters.
Are you ready to outfox outages? Reach out to speak to one of our experts about the right solutions for your business.