Lessons Learned from Energy Commission Microgrid Projects: Best Practices from EPIC PON-14-301 Grant Recipients

Microgrid demonstration and implementation is a major focus for the California Energy Commission and has been supported by funds administered by the commission under the Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) program for the past 10 years. Seven EPIC-funded microgrid projects funded in 2015 recently concluded their three-year implementation timelines. These seven projects demonstrated low-carbon-based microgrids for critical facilities and high-penetration, renewable-based microgrids. The microgrid developers and customers were early adopters who experienced many challenges and gained valuable insights about microgrid planning, implementation, and operation.

The California Energy Commission gathered lessons learned during the grant period by interviewing key personnel involved in the projects. Aggregating the lessons and best practices across participants will inform future microgrid deployments in California and additional research and development needs. Together, the lessons and best practices from the seven EPIC-funded microgrid demonstration projects reflect considerable knowledge and experience gained by project participants. These microgrids provided compelling value for their customers and communities, even during the early demonstration phases. Project developers have pursued many new microgrid opportunities armed with the expertise gained from these experiences, and multiple participating customers are expanding or building new microgrids for their facilities. Interviews with participants showed basic best practices related to communication, coordination, and technology integration that are critical for complex, multistakeholder, and multivalue projects in a developing market.

This report describes detailed lessons learned, from up-front planning guidance to actionable interconnection recommendations. Based on the experiences with these seven projects, the California Energy Commission funding added value in several key areas related to advancing microgrids in California. Ongoing public funding support will be important to continue to standardize microgrid technology and provide longer-term performance evaluation for existing and future microgrid demonstration projects.